Given Hope

her

I only remember little bits and pieces of when she was here. Even then, it's hard for me to differentiate the real memories versus the stuff of dreams. When I think of her I always feel her presence, I feel her smile watching me. I remember it really well, her smile, how big, white and gloriously beautiful. How it could brighten a room when she walked in. How it caused this warmth to grow inside of me. I remember her hair that reached just below her shoulders, tight curls, and a jet black color. I used to love playing with her curls, twirling them around my finger, wishing my hair was more like hers. I remember the sound of her laughter filling the house with a sense of love and familiarity that would linger for moments after the beautiful noise would leave her lips. Even in the hard times her laugh would be like the lighthouse through the fog, reminding us of what was really there.

My fondest memory is of her stroking my hair, as we were reading "Love You Forever", my favorite book at the time. We were on my bed, I was maybe 5 or 6.

"I'll love you forever, I'll like you for always, as long as I'm living, my baby you'll be.", her voice would always lower to the whisper near the end of the book. Her fingers still running through my hair, and I would fall asleep.

I know it is a real memory too, because it is burned into my brain forever. I talk to my father about it at times, and he tells me about how he would stand at the door way, waiting for her to finish the book.

I remember her starting to wear hats when we went outside.  We would have "camp outs" in the living room, because some days she was too weak to go up the stairs. The day she shaved her head, I realized something was wrong. Even though I was so young, I knew she loved her hair, and I had loved her hair as well. Her black curls fell to the ground. My memory of it happens in slow motion taking hours for all her hair to eventually lay on the tile floor of our bathroom. I know that in real life it probably only took minutes, only minutes until I could see my mothers bare scalp.

After that day, I saw her deterioration before my eyes. The doctors appointments began taking up most of our days. My father, on the bad days, would not pick me up on time from school. I was typically the last kid there, sitting on a bench outside the school, with my teacher sitting by my side. But when he would arrive, she didn't look upset. She hugged me tight, and at the time I didnt understand why.

I remember one of the first times I saw her in a hospital bed. There was all kinds of wires and tubes going into her body, but when I walked in, she still smiled.

"It's okay honey", she would always hold my hand as she spoke to me, giving it weak but ever so meaningful squeezes when she could. "Theyre just making mommy healthy again, I'll be back home soon."

My dad, he tried. He tried so hard to be strong for me but now that I look back, he was dying inside. Him and my mother had been high school sweat hearts. He woukd cry in the shower at night, he would wake me up with the loud sobs and pounding on the walls. But i stayed in my room, because somehow i understood. I understood that we both loved her in such extreme ways. But she was the love of his life. And the cancer took her away the minute it started manifesting inside her.

We went to the market that day, to buy her flowers. And he let me pick which bouquet i thought she would like the best. I chose one with beautiful pink roses. I was si proud of my decision.

When we got there, we werent greeted with the big smile. She stared at us blankly, tears coming out her face.

"Honey, you dont have to fight anymore", my father ran to her side and held her hand si tightley her fingertips went white.

At that moment, I ran. The hospital had become a familiar place to me, and I ran. I hid in a closet full of toilet paper for hours. I laid in the corner blankly staring into the room. I could see footsteps passing by from beneath the door. And i laid there, numbness taking me over. And I fell asleep.

Trashy ending i know but this was a draft i used for an essay contest @ school, swear i edited it to be better and ill upload the better version later as "her 2.0" because thats a hilarious name and i think im funny but im not