People say that when you die your whole life flashes through your eyes. From my experience, that’s not entirely true, or maybe that’s just not what is happening to me right now. All I see is my dear old friend, and I remember all the times he got too close and I ran from him, I ran like the wind, because when you see him coming you just run, you run as fast as your legs can carry you towards someplace safe. Steve Jobs said “No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be”. I believe that’s true, but I also believe I have escaped death for many years already.
When I
was 10 years old I was playing in my tree house on the little balcony I had and
that’s when I saw him in my yard looking up at me. He looked about my age but I
had never seen him before, I tried to say something but my words failed me and
everything went black.
I fell
from my tree house that day and I broke my arm. That day when I opened my eyes
in the white dull room in the hospital I saw him again. I couldn’t quite grasp
why he was there, and what I remember most is the sad smile he gave me, the
look on his face telling me that he didn’t want to be there. All of the sudden
he left and later that day I overheard a conversation between my parents and my
doctor. I heard the words cancer and chemotherapy, words too big to understand,
and the doctor kept apologizing and I didn’t know why. Had he done this to me?
Make me fall from that silly tree. My mind took me back to sad looking boy who
had given me fear and sadness at the same time.
After
that day I fell from my tree house my life changed completely. My parents
started treating me differently and I lost all the good things in my life. The
hospital became my second home and I had a life very different from other kids
my age. I didn’t have friends because I couldn’t run too fast or jump too high
or do something that could affect my body too much. My tree house was cut down
and my parents fought all the time. Throughout the months that passed, my hair
started to lose color, it wasn’t the regular strawberry blond that I was used
to, my eyes didn’t look hazel anymore they look a deep shade of lifeless brown,
my skin wasn’t as white, it was more of a light yellow tone. I was different
and nothing anyone said to me would change that. I lost all appreciation for
life, I was in a dark place and I was all alone.
Apart
from the hospital nurses with whom I was on a first name basis, that boy I saw
became the one thing that never went away. Every time the doctor had bad news
for me he was there. Always there with his sad smile. He never came closer than
a few feet from me, and I never tried to come closer either, we had a silent
understanding and we were in the same room but we never spoke a word to each
other. He became my omen of bad luck.
When I
turned 20 I started to see less and less of the sad smiled boy. I was in
remission. The doctors had said that the cancer was no longer spreading and I
could live my life as I wanted to. My hair had grown again and my eyes looked
alive. I traveled the world, I saw things in one year that people don’t see in
a lifetime. I fell in love, I made friends, I tried mouthwatering food, I swam
naked, and I danced all night. I did all the things I was never allowed to do
when I was sick. I saw Italy, France, Austria and Greece. For those 12 months I
didn’t see my sad looking friend and I was happy. I only thought about him a
little when I was alone, I thought about what he would look like now, would he
still look sad, would I ever see him smile at me again.
The
day of my 21st birthday I came back to my home town with a different
point of view. I saw color everywhere so I started to paint. Everything I saw
was inspiration for my canvas, people, a pretty landscape, a tree. My life
started to have meaning and I was finally happy, for another year I was happy
and I didn’t see my sad looking friend.
When I
was about to turn 24, I had an art showing in a gallery in town. I had a couple
of friends from my travels who had come to see me, my family was there, and I
was glowing with love and companionship. I was talking to someone who wanted to
buy one of my paintings, and when I looked up I saw the same sad smile that I
hadn’t seen in years and I knew. I recognized him immediately. The last thing I
remember from that day is giving a loud “NO”, and then everything went black.
It was
like someone had pressed the rewind button and just like that I was back at the
hospital with my dear old friend in the back, always looking at me, always with
the sad smile. The news weren’t as bad as I was expecting them to be, the
doctor said that I had just fainted from exhaustion and that I should avoid
stressful situations for the future. But something didn’t add up, the sad
looking boy turned man was still here. I decided to not pay too much attention
to that fact, I did the only thing I could, and that was to run, so I did just
that. I traveled again, saw new places and stayed away. I just wanted the sad
looking man to never lay eyes upon me again.
Running
didn’t work this time, everywhere I went I would see him looking at me with his
sad smile. Every time I saw him I ran the other way. I ran to another city, to
another country, I ran like the devil himself was coming after me. I stopped
enjoying what I was seeing, the food wasn’t as tasteful as it should’ve been, I
didn’t make new friends because I didn’t stay in one place long enough. All
that running and thinking of running didn’t leave any room for taking care of
myself and I didn’t notice what was happening to my body or to my mental state.
When I called my mother I rambled about some man who had been following me
since I was 10 years old. I was 26 and I sounded like a lunatic. My mother
asked me to come home after the third time I called her talking about nothing
else.
I was
back home and I hadn’t been successful in avoiding the sad looking man. I sat
on my window and there he was, looking up at me with the same sad smile, but
this time he extended his arm to me, like an invitation. I can’t remember being
so afraid in my entire life, not when I had surgery, not when the doctor had
bad news. Never had I been more afraid than that moment when the sad smiled man
stretched his arm at me and invited me to come with him.
After
that first time I saw him doing that I never saw him do anything else. Every
time it was the same sad smile and his right arm stretched out to me. Now that
I think about it, before that day I couldn’t actually see him well, I could
just see his smile, it was with time that I started to see him clearly.
A week
before my birthday, my mother drove me to the mall to get my present. We were
having so much fun just the two of us talking about boys and looking for a dress
I could wear to my party. I was trying my best not to look away from her in
fear of seeing my sad looking friend inviting me to go with him. At one point
in the day my mother went to the bathroom and I was sitting in a bench when I
saw a boy fall in front of me. I immediately got up to help him, only to look
at him and see the sad smile that had been haunting me for almost seventeen
years. I stumbled backwards and I must’ve lost my footing because I fell and
hit my head, and yes, just like that, everything went black.
So
here I am, at 11.30pm the day before my birthday. I have spent the past week in
the hospital because after that fall I took a week ago I couldn’t move my legs
again, and I am currently on a respirator because I can’t breathe on my own. I
can’t say that I am surprised about the outcome, I have failed to get to my
checkups in time and that’s why there wasn’t anything they could do about it,
the cancer spread to my hip and my lungs. Dr. Lawrence said that I had been
lucky so far to have survived for so long when I could’ve died about a year
ago.
My
parents brought a lawyer earlier today because I signed a DNR (Do not
resuscitate) form and they are trying to get it overruled because they don’t
want me to die. But you see, when you die you don’t suffer, it’s the people
around you that suffer the most, those who love you. I want to say something to
them, to ask them to stop this because I just want them to let me go. Too many
years they’ve had to deal with this, too much pain and doctor visits and bad
news, just to have them get sucked back in after a little bit of peace.
I
think it’s 11.58pm now, I don’t know exactly because the clock is too far to
the left and I can’t move that far. My parents are nowhere to be seen, they’ve
probably gone to bring decorations for the room or just to get some fresh air.
I scan the room once more and I find the sad looking man with his arm stretched
out towards me and I can finally see him clearly. Now he doesn’t look so sad
and his smile is genuine, his eyes are welcoming. I take a deep breath and I find
that my legs can move so I smile back and I sit up and try to call out to my
parents to share with them, only they can’t hear me and the nurses are moving
frantically outside looking for something and yelling but I’m too enthralled to
even make out what they’re saying. Somehow I know that the man in front of me
can hear me.
“It’s
time, Lily” he said.
“Time
for what?” I asked him, even though deep down I knew what he was talking about.
“Time
for your greatest adventure yet”
I got
up and for the first time in all those years I come close to him and I grab his
hand.
I went
to my dear old friend who was always there in the background but I was too busy
running to understand.
I went
to my dear old friend and for the first time I knew who he was.
I went
to my dear old friend and his name is Death.

