Beth
"Dear Beth…" As quickly as he wrote it, he immediately crumpled the paper and threw it in the trashcan. He had wanted to tell her, his daughter, something about where he got her name. There was a specific reason he had chosen that name. His eyes flew to a picture on his desk. It showed a little girl and a young Puck, both were bald. He picked up the picture and smiled.
"You should grow a mowhawk." He still could hear the childish voice, but it was an ill voice.
She had suggested during her first period in the hospital. The doctor had told them, she would lost her hair. So he decided he would be bold too, just to be loyal with her. She had laughed when she saw him the first time without his hair.
"Why did you do that?" she had asked him and had felt his head. She had giggled, apparently it tickled. " 'Cause I didn't want you to be the only who would be bald," he had answered. "But granddad is bald." "But Granddad is old." She had smirked at him.
She had been three years younger than him. Sometimes they could get along, other times he had found her annoying. Especially when his friends were over, and she asked him to play tea party with her dolls. Afterwards, when his friends were gone, he went to her room and played with her, until diner.
She had always been weak, she was often sick. Then she had a cold, then an ammonia or something else. He could never take her out without being afraid she would get sick again. But one time, he was probably thirteen, their mother had taken them to the woods. It was autumn, the ground was strewn with brown, and yellow leafs. She had loved it, together they threw the leafs at each other. After that she had turned sick again, but this wasn't just a cold. So they took her to the hospital and then they heard she was very sick.
Leukemia.
The devastating news had torn his mother apart. After the news she just left and had returned late that night. He was there when his sister got admitted to the hospital, when she got hooked up on her first chemo. He didn´t quite understand what was going on, but he knew it was bad. Very bad. All the time he had hold her hand, talked to her. He thought he was more frightened then her.
That night he had taken his father's old shaving machine and shaved his head bald. His mum had been watching from the doorway, she had said nothing. When he was done, she had hugged him. They held each other for what seemed hours. The next day his sister had suggested growing a mowhawk.
She had fought so hard. She never had given up, not until the last minute.
That last night, she had told him about that autumn, three years ago. She told him it had meant a lot for her, playing and mocking with him. One last time she had felt his head and grinned. "I love you, Noah." She had closed her eyes and drifted off into a deep sleep. A sleep she would never wake up from.
"I love you too, Beth."