Letting Go
I'll never be able to fulfill my dream of becoming a professional baseball player. Ever since I got leukemia, my dreams have just been shattered. Still, my parents say I have to live a normal life…or at least try to. They won't let me quit my little league team, even though I want to. It is just too hard for me to play knowing that in a few weeks' time, I won't be able to play ever again. My doctor says I'll die soon, but my mother says to hold on and I can fight this, I can conquer the leukemia. Not many people have lived through it, though. She's still convinced that I will be a professional baseball player when I grow up, but I'm faced with reality. I know the truth.
My older brother, Holden, is one of the only ones who understands what I'm going through. He always knows what to say and how to cheer me up. I think he knows the truth too, but he never tells me that he knows I will live through this; he never tells me that I'm going to die either. He sees me in the outfield, my green pen in hand, and he just smiles at me. No one else can see his smile from that far away in the outfield, but I can. I know when he's smiling, encouraging me to keep on going. I always need that one pen with me whenever I'm playing baseball. It is the only way I can handle it and get through a game without breaking down. I never write when I'm supposed to be paying attention and watching for the ball to come my way, but in between batters. My teammates think I'm crazy, but I just need to write those poems in order to get through it. Holden understands. He's about the only one who does, though. Others look at me strangely, wondering why on earth I am writing in with green ink on my top-of-the-line leather glove. I never explain, though. I just smile, like Holden.
Over the next few weeks, I feel myself weaker and weaker. Eventually my parents let me quit baseball altogether. I'm relieved that I won't have to face the game every day, but then again, it has been part of my life since I was three. My life has ended. I don't want to think I'm dying, but the inevitable had finally come. Holden remained by my side through it all.
I had always been more of an intellectual than an athlete, even though baseball is my ultimate love. My teachers told my parents that I am a pleasure to have in their class, and I'm easy to teach, but I don't think so. I think they just felt bad for me because I have leukemia. I went to school up to a week before I died. Altogether the cancer lasted about two and a half years. I lived a whole lot longer than my doctors had predicted. One of the reasons why I held on so long was Holden. Holden helped me in every way possible, even though he doesn't really know how much he has really helped me. I looked up to him, like any little brother looks up to a big brother. I love him with all my heart, but I never even told him. He told me that I was smarter than him, knew more than he did. That isn't true. I will always remember one of the last things he said to me when I was lying in my hospital bed.
"Ya don't deserve all this, Allie. You're so smart and all and me…well, I should be there in your place." He was almost crying. He really was. Holden Caulfield. Crying. "You're just such a good kid…"
Then I told him strictly: "Don't you say that, Holden. There are reasons for everything: reasons why I'm lying here dying, reasons why I wrote those poems on my ol' baseball glove, reasons why you're my brother. It's not your fault. You shouldn't blame yourself." My raspy voice could just barely get the words out. "I knew that I would die ever since I got cancer."
"Don't say that, Allie. You can get through this, I know you will. You…have to…" He was breaking down, gasping for breath in between sobs. But we both knew that I wouldn't. We both knew that I didn't have a chance anymore. It was that night that I gave Holden my baseball glove. I knew I wouldn't be needing it anymore.
That night it was like our roles had changed. For once I felt like the older brother handing down a prized possession to a younger brother. I knew he needed the consolation more than I did. I had always looked up to Holden, and I made sure he knew that the same night I gave him my baseball glove. I never told him I loved him, but I knew that we both knew it inside our hearts. That night I finally felt at peace with myself; I had lived a full life. I could finally let go. Holden left the room and my parents walked in, hand-in-hand. They lingered over me for a while, fussing about those musty old hospital sheets and making sure I was comfortable. They were in my room for about a half an hour's time before I finally said my goodbyes. They didn't seem to understand, but I told them I loved them and drifted off to sleep for the last time…
I felt part of me drift up and out of my body. I was free at last, and could roam anywhere I pleased. I saw the monitors of the machines hooked to my body flat-line, my mother shriek with horror, and an army of doctors in white coats run in to try and revive me. I knew it was too late. I saw Holden in the hallway watching in astonishment as he leaned up against the wall and sank to the floor, draping his arms around his knees and letting the tears flow freely. He didn't make a sound, but the tears streamed down his face endlessly. I honestly thought he wouldn't be able to stop.
"He's gone," I heard my doctor say somberly. My mother sobbed hysterically, still desperately trying to get at my body despite my father's strong arms clutching her waist and holding her back. Holden just sat there in the hallway silently.
Two hours later, they arrived back at our house, numb with shock and fatigue. My parents climbed out of the station wagon, but Holden just sat there in the back seat, tracing the words on my baseball glove lightly with his finger.
"Holden, honey, it's time to come inside, dear," our mother told him.
"I'll be there in a minute," he said, his voice oddly high pitched. She nodded and bowed back into the house. Holden never reached the house that night. Fifteen minutes after she left, he climbed out of the station wagon and put his fist through all the windows of the garage in angst. I was surprised neither of our parents heard all the ruckus because he was yelling at the top of his lungs too. He tried to punch in the window of the station wagon with his bloody hand, but he was just too weak and couldn't do it. Instead, he climbed back into the car and sobbed himself to sleep, clutching my baseball glove close to his chest.
Two days later was the funeral. I saw my entire family, friends, and basically everyone in the community shuffle past my coffin with tearstained faces. Many said, "He died so young" or "There was so much of his life left to live". Others just didn't know what to say and walked silently by. I listened to my aunt give an incredibly dull eulogy and watched the priest bless my coffin. Soon it was the end of mass. Everyone filed out to comfort each other. All except for one.
Holden—dressed up the most I had ever seen him in a suit and tie—slowly made his way to the front of the sacristy, something cradled under his arm. As he finally made his way up to my still open coffin, I saw what he had in his bandaged hand: my old baseball glove. "You won't be needing this old thing when you're up in heaven and all," he told me, again running his finger over my writing. "It's too mucked up anyway." From behind his arm he produced another glove, a top-of-the-line beautiful leather glove just like my other one, but better. With the same hand he had punched through the windows in the garage, he managed to grapple it and tuck it in beside me in the coffin. "For when you become a professional baseball player up there in heaven." He looked up to the ceiling and smiled straight at the place I had been observing. I smiled back. He couldn't see me, of course, but in his heart I knew he could sense exactly where I was. He looked back at my body. "Bye, Allie," he whispered softly, slowly backing away from the coffin and finally turning away from it as he walked to join the rest of the mourners in the back of the church.