My Mother is the Bravest Person I Know

by brokenrussiancrawl

Jamie doesn't really talk to anyone, he normally sits in class staring off into space or drawing plays for basketball, but for some reason the paper was calling for her to read it. With a sigh she began to read:

Fact about me, Brokenrussiancrawl:

I watched this really sad movie with Amanda Bynes and Harry Connick Jr.; it's this movie about cancer and I cried and I just thought 'how would Jamie react?' The only reason I chose OTH was because I started to watch it after the movie.

Today has been a long day. The first week of school was finally over and now all Mrs. Willis had to do was correct the essay's from the students about the bravest person that they have ever known. This should be good. She settled down and prepared herself for what was going to come.

After a while Mrs. Willis was getting tired of hearing about how they believe that Lebron James is the bravest person because he'd not afraid to take the ball to the hoop, or that Lindsay Lohan is brave because she has been trying to recover from her drug addiction with Amy Whinehouse. Or that Barrack Obama was real brave for running for president.

She had just got done reading a nicely written essay about how they think that a person off of the Show Degrassi was real brave for sticking up for what she believed in, but she was wanting someone who was real and not a fictional character on a TV show.

Willis was just about to give up and finish them tomorrow so she would have more endurance to read the rest of the essays. She leaned forward a little as she began to get up until she spotted the name on the top of the paper. It was Jamie Scott. She cocked her head to the side as she picked the paper up off her coffee table. Jamie doesn't real talk to anyone, he normally sits in class staring off into space or drawing plays for basketball, but for some reason the paper was calling for her to read it. She settled into her couch again and with a sigh she began to read:

Jamie Scott

September 13th, 2022

Mrs. Willis

Dear Mrs. Willis,

When you asked the class to write about the bravest person we know I believe that you thought that I would write about my dad, or my favorite basketball player maybe something else among those lines. But for me the bravest person I know has and always will be my mother: Haley James Scott. She was a High School English teacher, a Rock Star, and a loving mother and friend. I can honestly say that when I think back to the times I had with my mother she was the sweetest and most loyal person I have ever encountered in my life. My mother was always there when I needed support, she was there to cheer me on at all my events and she was there to hold me when I cried at night; she was there to aid my dad, Nathan Scott, back to health when he was in a wheel chair, she was there to be the preacher at her best friends and my Uncle, Lucas Scotts, wedding, and help him pick out a house; she was there for my godmother, Brooke Davis, when she couldn't have kids of her own or she was about to loose her company, Clothes Over Bros; with a gentle hand she guided my Uncle Mouth back to his original self, and told my Uncle Skills that no matter what she was there for him. The crowds at her concerts loved her music, thought that she was a Rock icon. Haley James Scott was a lot of things but what I remember most about her was even though the Doctors all told her she wouldn't make it, that she would die soon, she kept going, never losing faith. She smiled threw the pain and she laughed when someone told her she couldn't do something. Haley knew how to hold her own and she was rarely afraid of anything, even death. But in the end, death always has away of catching up to us.

Have you ever heard that saying, "They say in death all life questions are answered."? Well I have and at this moment I have a lot of questions that I would like answered, like why was it MY mother; what was it that she did to deserve this? Will I ever see her again? Is she happy? When I think of all the questions I have unanswered I think of all the times my mom would try and explain something to me, in the best way she could. Its times like these I sit back and wonder what she would say to me when I asked them to her. She would probably turn around and ask me what I thought the answers were. My dad is no help he tries to say that: yes she thinks of me and that he had no idea why it was my mother and that she didn't do anything, that it was just fate that made her have the cancer that spread through her brain. The thing is that none of those answers that he gave me made me feel any bit better about the situation and I could tell that he asked himself the same questions all the time.

Hearing that my mother had cancer was not the highlight of my life. In fact when she told me I thought at she was joking; turns out she wasn't. I can still see it in my head, her face, sad and a little confused; her eyes, pleading for me not to over react; her voice- her voice I will never forget- was so clam and rational, as if we were discussing what we were having for dinner. I wanted to be mad at her, tell her to go to hell-excuse my language-and that I never wanted to see her again. I almost did, but instead, I started to cry. Every emotion I had was running threw me like I had just been hit with a bolt of lightning and I had to let it out. Anger, hatred, sadness, confusion were all running threw me at that moment and the one word I kept asking myself was 'why'.

Mrs. Willis looked up form the paper and dabbed at her eyes with the sleeve of her shirt. Man, could this kid write an essay. It was heartfelt and raw; you could tell just by reading this that it hurt him to write this and that the questions that he has are still unanswered. She just wanted to take Jamie into her arms and tell him that everything will be aright, but for some reason Willis had this feeling that he had heard this line way too many times in his life.

She looked down at the paper and saw slight smudges on the paper, they were, what she guessed, tear stains. He missed her, anyone could see this and if they could then they were blind.

She wondered if anyone else knew what Jamie was dealing with. But it wasn't her business to pry. She wanted to help him deal with the death of his mother, but she honestly thought that, had it been her mom that died at that young age, she wouldn't get over it either.

Mrs. Willis got up and went into the kitchen gabbing a mug from the cabinet she poured herself a cup of coffee. She was going to be prepared to finish this essay. Willis walked back to the couch and sat down; placing the blanket over her lap she leaned back and brought the paper back to her for her to read.

My mother was growing really sick, really fast and the doctors had no idea what was happening. They gave her medicine and told her about this drug called HER2. See what they did was give her a shot every two weeks. This shot was full of chemotherapy; for a while it made her sick, but after that she steadily got better. I wasn't kidding myself into believing that my mother would magically get better, but as the treatment continued she was able to make it threw that days with out getting headaches or needing to lie down, she was nearly her old self again. The HER2 treatment lasted for a year and then she was done. As the time passed I thought that she would show signs of getting sick again and that she would need more, but she didn't, instead she was still a great big ball of energy. She was chasing me and my little sister around the house and yard. She was shopping with my Aunt Brooke and she was spending a lot more time with my dad and Uncle Lucas. My mom even helped my Uncle Mouth and my Uncle Skills move into their new apartment. It was great, we were all so happy I had sometimes for got that she had Cancer.

But like every good thing it didn't last long. She died three summers later with a smile on her face. She was ever so gracious when bowing out it was almost as if she knew she wouldn't be waking up the next morning. I'm still surprised that my mother made it as long as she did. The HER2 medicine gave my mom three extra years of life that she was not supposed to have. The doctor that made the drug gave me and my family the best gift anyone could ever ask for: more time with my mom, Haley James Scott.

As I look back on these memories, I smile. I smile because I know my mom was happy when it was her time to go. I knew that no matter what she was always going to be with me maybe not in person but I would always carry her around in my heart. At times I do get lonely and I miss her a whole bunch. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night crying because I wish she were there to hold me and tell me that everything will be alright; but my mom never comes. The house is lonely with out her and there is always this emptiness that I carry around with me where my mother once was. The silence consumes me whenever I'm at home; her laughter that once rang out through the house is now gone and the silence it so loud it's almost deafening. Her chair at the kitchen table is never used, even when we have company, it's just another reminder of what we all once had, that is gone.

My dad never remarried; to this day he still wears the wedding ring that she had given him so many years ago. As I think about my father I think about how distraught he was when she passed away. I think about how my Aunt Brooke was the one who took me and my sister in until my dad had gotten a grip on himself. It was the hardest on my Uncle Luke; he cried a lot and he pulled himself away from everyone into his own little shell of misery. I guess it never came as a surprise to me that he would act that way, I mean, him and my mom have been inseparable since they were in middle school. Sometimes I look at him and he's staring off into space I just get this feeling that he is thinking about my mom about how she would love this new movie that came out, or like this out fit. My Uncle Luke missed my mother so much that he wrote a book all about her; and it only took him a few months to do it; it is now a number one best seller. Aunt Brooke was sad too, but she was the best at hiding it: she forced smiles and cracked jokes, but every day I would see her gazing longingly at a picture on her and my mother and see her unshed tears. The others were just as bad, Mouth, Skills, Junk and Fergie; they were pretty beaten up about it. Skills moved away saying that it "Wasn't the same" with out my mom and I would have to agree.

My mother is the bravest person I know, not just for keeping her head up when dealing with Cancer but for making sure that I, and everyone else, knew that even when she was gone, she would still be with us; always and forever in our hearts and in our thoughts. This way my mother, Haley James Scott, will never die, but she will live on in all of us that that we will love her and cherish the memories that we have together. No matter if she is here with us now or if she is in heaven looking down on us all I know that she will be there for me and my family guiding us and showing us the way sometimes. My mother is the best and bravest person I have ever had the honor of meeting, and I'm the proud son that gets to say that this impeccable woman was my mother.

Sincerely,

Jamie Scott.

Mrs. Willis just put the paper down and took in a much needed breath of air, she was about to cry. She wrote a big red "A" at the top of the paper and wrote nest to it, "Jamie that was one of the most beautiful things ever read and if you ever need to talk let me know. You would make a good writer someday." She knew he probably wouldn't come to talk to her but the offer was still there for him. She just hoped that one day he might let go of the emptiness and move on, or find a way to live with it.

Sighing she picked up another essay and began to read about a basketball player.