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I left abruptly while the doctor was fore, except I couldn't find an ounce of peace
~peaking. I turned down some white corri- anywhere in my soul.
While we slept, monitors beeped, nurses
?rs that lost their space and meaning to me
hkrt. my fist of pearls into a wall, sank to my' came in and out. Eventually Iwas advised to
~ees and sobbed. Shaking and shaking, the go, to let her sleep.
School was far away, loud, fast paced and
gnef passed through my body, the confusion
tiring. Even when I was having fun, I knew
overwhelmed everything Iwas. Her sleeping that somewhere Grace, my grace, was dimin-
ishing. When I went home to visit her, her
scared me to my core. It seemed only a half golden hair had fallen out. So Iwould stretch
my hands over her delicate shoulders and try
step above death. to pour my wellness into her, try to smile life
into her hollow cheeks. She would always
"It's not rare to see this form of cancer in smile back; hope seemed to fill her in a way
elusive to me. "If Iwere king for a day," Itold
so~eone so young," a man with an MD ex- her, because she no longer asked, "I would
crush this thing inside of you and you would
f~am~d in a confident voice. "Thankfully,
feel like you did before."
dier~ IS a chance, with chemotherapy and ra- I went home every weekend my first se-
thation, Grace could pull through." She slept mester. And Itook off the second one for the
e whole time I was there that night, ap- funeral.
At the service pictures were everywhere
~arently exhausted from the tests. We went
of the two of us together. We were smiling at
ack the next day and she was awake. I took everyone from our places all over the room;
in piles of leaves, at church on Sundays, at the
her small hand in mine. Grace shined on me beach (when she started wearing a two piece
was a particularly fond summer of mine),
one of her smiles. "I'm not going to leave for dressed up for proms and done up for plays.
What we buried that day was my whole life,
s~hool until you're better," Ispoke, filling the my sense of peace, hope and joy, and the girl
sIlence. She gently swept her palms over my who changed my world.
A year went by where I solely went
cheeks, pushing away my pain. Her wrists
through the motions of life. I lay awake at
Were alarmingly thin and her hands so deli- night thinking of each memory where my
hands would brush every inch of her, where
cate. my arms would pull her close to me, where
we would rise and fall together. Iwould feel
I "How did you get this way?" Iasked her. her curls wound around my fingers. I could
see her face in her window when my heart
. had seen her two nights before; she ate pizza was breaking the most. Iwondered if Iwent
and stood outside of her house long enough
~n my house. She had been sick with mono now, if she would sense my presence and
or the past few months and Ihad noticed her come back to me.
Waning energy and thinning body. She never
complained, so Ithought it would soon pass.
b "I ;;roke up one_ night and couldn't
reathe, she told me, her breathing labored
~en now. She washed the thought away
Ith a small flip of her hand. "You have to
go to school, for me," she urged. "You have
t~ tell me all about it." She released the breath
~ e had gathered and laid her head back on
er pillow. .
b Istretched my six-foot self out thin on the
ITed next to her, careful of every cord. I put
arm gently under her small shoulders and
to t her body tense, then relax. We fell asleep
0gether, the way we had so many times be-
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