Twenty-three minutes. I told myself I wouldn’t cry, and I know now, as I look into my parents’ watery eyes, as I feel Miles’s trembling hand embracing mine, I know I’ll keep that promise. They’re all trying so hard to smile, to support me in this decision, and it wouldn’t be fair to allow myself to break down. It would take them all with me.
My own smile isn’t forced, though it is weary, full of the exhaustion and pain that I’ve been feeling for months. This hospital bed has been my home for almost a year now, but I know my family still isn’t used to seeing me like this. Especially Miles. When I was diagnosed, he didn’t cry as I did, as everyone else did. He stayed strong, as he vowed to do. But I see the way his face falls a bit when he visits me every day, the way his bright smile can light up the entire room yet leave his eyes dim.
Eleven minutes.
It’s funny how life works sometimes, how someone could live to be over one hundred years old, and another could pass away within a year of their existence. I’m not quite that young, especially since I feel as if I’ve grown up so much through this experience and through these people, these amazing nurses and doctors who I also consider my family; but I got leukemia when I was fifteen.
There were things I wanted to do with my life, of course. I wanted to move to Australia with Miles, wanted to marry him, wanted to get my first book published when I was sixteen.
I was in this hospital the week of my sixteenth birthday. Miles brought in some flowers and balloons, and a new CD that I had been wanting, since I missed its release. He brought my favorite kind of cake, too. I threw up the two bites I took.
I had my entire life planned out, down to the very house I would live in. But I’m not upset I can’t do those things now. It’s strange how your priorities change when you’re given fourteen months to live.
The doctors told me it would be painful. Slow and agonizing, but they could sustain my life if I wanted, if I was willing to fight through it for an indefinite amount of time. At first I believed I should for my family, so I could stay with my parents longer. But then I realized it would be even harder for them to watch me slowly fade into nothing at all, to watch me become only a breath of who I once was.
Four minutes. “I love you, Jo. We’re gonna have that wedding when we next see each other. Don’t let any guy up there take you from me,” Miles whispers, nuzzling his face in my hair. It makes me smile. I have to give him credit for the semi-steadiness of his voice. My parents haven’t been able to talk all day. We said our goodbyes last night.
Two minutes. Sarah comes back into the room with Josh and the other nurses. They’re all in their uniforms, and for a second I wonder if I’m troubling them by having them here, but I agree to allow myself this last minute of selfishness and to keep them with me. Josh comes over and holds my other hand.
“You brave girl,” he mutters, smiling at me with tear-filled eyes. Everyone’s crying now, everyone except me, as Sarah prepares the syringe that will set me free.
They don’t realize how much they mean to me. How much this experience has. How every laugh and every hug and every tear will forever be with me. I am so grateful to have had the years I have, to have had these people and their love--that’s better than any plan I could have made.
So when Sarah chokes her goodbye and begins placing the needle in a vein in my neck, and I mouth my love to my parents, and they hug each other and tell me theirs, and kisses are placed on my forehead and my cheeks, I can’t wipe the smile off of my face.
The feeling of pain isn’t present, as I had come to believe it would. Instead, it’s as if all of the pain and worries and stresses I’ve been carrying seem to float away, leaving me lighter, softer, brighter than I have ever been. I can hear my family and their tears, can see their sadness as I drift away. My body lies a few feet beside me, eyes closed. My throat closes up at the sight of Miles kissing my lifeless hand with streaks running down his cheeks, but I push the sobs away and replace them with a smile.
They’re all strong. They’ve all helped me more than I can explain. And as the scene before me starts to fade into a gentle, white light, and I feel myself drifting away as well, becoming part of the warmth, part of the brightness, I let one single tear drip down my cheek.