A/N: This is just random scribbles of me and I don't know what I will do with this after, I was about to delete it, then I changed my mind. Forgive me, I failed to edit this one :)
DYING
When you're young, they say you have a lot of good things ahead of you, and so you go and chase after them. But what if you are torn being just young? And in all likelihood, you won't even breathe the air like a man in his thirties does – like how your friends would when they grow old.
I smiled to myself and thought, "At least I was able to reach my teenage years. It's not that bad at all." Nodding my head rigorously – a habit I had acquired which actually means that I am making myself be more convinced of what I said, which I am actually not.
I pulled myself in and hug my knees together, wishing that the pain I am feeling would just go and leave me. It is funny though, I am feeling such kind of pain: piercing, intermittent, and mind numbing, however, I could not even locate where this pain resides. Like it's all over me, somewhat a blanket of barbed wires wrapped around me… uhm of course, metaphorically.
While I am curled like a fetus, lying on top of my bed, cruising over the last few years of my life, which won't last that long, no matter how I wish it would, I happen to recall something that I had considered as a valid reason of me, dying.
My Grandfather used to say a verse he once claimed to be his 'original', yet when I turned seventeen, I learned it came from the Bible. That old man! Anyways, here was the verse – "Let the little children come to me and do not try to stop them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these."
That verse became a mantra, the wisdom I will live for the moment and soon to be outlived later after I'm gone. I am not sentimental or anything, I am just giving myself consolation, a consolation for spending half of my life in physical pain that my cancer is causing. Likewise, never did blame anyone on why I am having such a crappy kind of sickness, of all those people in the world, it was me. Okay, in truth, I'm not blaming anyone, but nonetheless I can't help being regretful of the things I could and would have done if I am all free of this damn cancer.
I could have gone to a normal school, spend my high school life like any other teenagers, learn how to drive motorbike and racing cars, go skiing with my Dad and friends, travel to European countries and explore the vastness of Southeast Asia's amazing tropical haven, and most of all have a girlfriend, which I am afraid I might not be able to have. I'm not to physically incapable of doing so, but then what's the use if I'll soon be dying, leaving her miserable like my parents. So, I had decided not to hope that it will even happen and if it does, I will do my best to keep it to myself, because I want to suffer alone, just alone.
The selfish of me, owning the suffering alone became known to my Grandpa. I told him so. He was cool about it, but had left me with a word – "Don't be too hard on yourself. There are thousands of things inevitable in this world." I saw how Grandpa sighed that morning, there was a long pregnant silence between us before he looked straight into my eyes, uttered and quoted –"After all, if you do not resist the apparently inevitable, you will never know how inevitable the inevitable was." I was surprised with what he said, of course, aside from the fact that he quoted Mr. Terry Eagleton – the writer of Why Marx Was Right, a book I haven't heard or read.
He might have noticed me being silent, and that was the time my Grandpa told me the verse from the Bible, re-quote – "Let the little children come to me and do not try to stop them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these."
It did stir me, made me realize that maybe God wants me there, also those other kids having this crappy cancer. Little by little, I had accepted that indeed I will soon, die. The acceptance made it easier for me to wake up every day, but my parents was not happy about it. Mom said – "You are not supposed to accept it. You are supposed to fight it, kill it!"
"Kill it before it kills me", I finished for her with a sound so detached. I felt it wasn't me saying it.
She looked at me wide-eyed, tears crowding and ready to fall any second. Mom pursed her lips, as if trying to utter a statement, but couldn't make a sound.
"I'm sorry", I said, bowing my head and she just walked past through me, and I know she was trying not to sob.
My Dad isn't like my mother, he does hate that I am sick and hates it even more that I had learned to live the fact that I'm dying. But he never forced the idea of fighting my cancer and yelling it in front of my face. Dad would just sit across me, look at me in the eyes and we would start the battle of staring contest until he ended averting his gaze away from me. It's obvious, he has something to tell me, however, he's either incapable of voicing it out or he feels embarrassed if he ends breaking before he could even start.
Yes, my father is more emotional than my mother. It's like he is tough from the outside, even to other people, but when it comes to me, there would always be a soft spot inside him that would crumble down at times his eyes throw a glance at me.
There were times wherein I ask myself if I look that bad, if I look too sick to be considered as normal. And thankfully, I look fine despite the eye bags under my eyes, crack lips, pale skin and disheveled hair. Gladly, I am not that thin like any other sick person, I eat a lot and for some metabolic reason and maybe because of my cancer, I'm not fat.
My parents and my Complementary and Alternative Medical Adviser - he is a doctor of alternative medicine, supervising me just because I can't indulge myself injected with poison (Chemo chemicals for chemotherapy. Grrrr!y) and be under radiation, which is also one of the primary causes of cancer. Isn't it ironic? Anyways, the three of them always make sure that I stay in shape because I am dead sure my doctor would freak out if I suddenly puffed like a polar bear, and so I have maintained some abs, please don't roll your eyes, I do have them. Do I need to give you prof? Oh! Come on, I swear I have them, the abs I mean, I have at least six.
And about getting fat, I don't mind though, because I know someone will be so happy to see me ballooned into a polar bear, she would definitely love it – the polar bear!
"Yi Jeong-ah!" I heard that same soothing voice, calling my name from the corridor and her footsteps approaching my room.
"Speaking of the devil." My Angel
A/N: How was it? Reviews are very welcome. Please let me know your insight. Thank you and God bless!