Chapter 18

Isaac

And so the days dragged on without Hazel. Kate and Grace got settled in at home and I've been with them every day, although I'm never completely there. I still can't believe it. I lost my two best friends in the space of one year. I guess there is always someone who gets left behind isn't there. Anyways, I have to be strong for Kate and for Grace, and of course I'm trying to be happy because of the baby, which I am but sadness always trumps happiness when all of your encounters are with dying people.

Hazel's mom called me three days AH to tell me that her funeral would be on Sunday, which is today. I prepared a eulogy, hopefully she'll like it.

Me, my parents, Grace, Kate and her parents, sit together in the third row of the little church where her funeral is being held. After we pay our respects at her grave, like I did for Gus a little over a year ago, the Priest starts with the usual funeral stuff. I'm not really listening. Then Kaitlyn, one of Hazel's pre-sickness friends, got up and gave a speech, barely keeping herself together. Then it was Kate's turn.
"I haven't known Hazel long. Just a year, or a little less, but in the time that I got to know her, I came to love her. Hazel told us a few weeks ago that she didn't want a bunch of bullshit speeches at her funeral, so I'm going to be honest. Hazel understood. She understood that we as cancer kids don't matter. And that the world doesn't give a damn about us, that the world just wants to be noticed and that when that to live a meaningful life you don't need to save the world, or climb a mountain or discover a new species. Our lives are measured in the people we touch. And Hazel, while she didn't have hundreds of admires running after her, she had an amazing handful of people who love her, deeply and truly, and will continue to hold her in their hearts forever. Hazel is heroic, and she'll be remembered, she'll be remembered by all of us." She comes back down and sits beside me, and drops her head onto my shoulder and cries. I squeeze her hand.
"Now we are going to hear a few words from Hazel's best friend Isaac." My mom gets up with me and leads me to the front of the room then goes to sit back down.
"Okay, um, hi. About a year ago, I lost a friend that meant a lot to me. We stuck my each other's side throughout our treatments and everything, and his name was Augustus Waters. One day a year and a half ago, I decided that I would bring Augustus to cancer support group with me, and that's where Hazel and him met. They fell in love, and I've never seen a love so true, but so sad, and when Hazel called me to tell me he was gone, everything in me collapsed. But a part of me was thinking, they loved each other so much, she's going to be broken beyond repair without him. But she was strong, and she accepted that he was gone and there was nothing she could do about it, but of course it still hurt. Augustus Waters believed in "Capital-S Something" And all I hope now that they're both gone, that they can be reunited once again. Hazel was intelligent, true and an amazing friend that I learned awesome lessons from. Hazel was important, and she will be missed forever." MY mom comes back up to get me and some songs are played in her honour. A couple of sad songs by the Hectic Glow. Then when the ceremony is almost over, Hazel's mom gets up and starts talking.
"I know before Isaac was talking about Hazel and Gus, and um before Gus died he wrote a beautiful eulogy for Hazel, and um, Hazel was very insistent that I read it at her funeral, I think she always hoped that Augustus would be the one eulogizing her, not the other way around, so I'm going to read it for him.
"'Here's the thing about Hazel: Almost everyone is obsessed with leaving a mark upon the world. Bequeathing a legacy. Outlasting death. We all want to be remembered. I do, too. That's what bothers me most, is being another unremembered casualty in the ancient and inglorious war against disease.

I want to leave a mark.

But the marks humans leave are too often scars. You build a hideous minimal or start a coup or try to become a rock star and you think, they'll remember me now, but (a) they don't remember you, and (b) all you leave behind are more scars. Your coup becomes a dictatorship. Your minimal becomes a lesion.

Hazel is different. She walks lightly. She walks lightly upon the earth. Hazel knows the truth: We're as likely to hurt the universe as we are to help it, and we're not likely to do either.

People will say it's sad that she leaves a lesser scar that fewer remember her, that she was loved deeply but not widely. But it's not sad, it's triumphant. It's heroic. Isn't that the real heroism? Like the doctors say: First, do no harm.

The real heroes anyways aren't the people doing things; the real heroes are the people noticing things, paying attention.

After my PET scan lit up, I snuck into the ICU and saw her while she was unconscious. I just walked in behind a nurse with a badge and I got to sit next to her for like ten minutes before I got caught. I really thought she was going to die before I could tell her that I was going to die, too. It was brutal: The incessant mechanized haranguing of intensive care. She had this dark cancer water dripping out of her chest. Eyes closed. Intubated. But her hand was still her hand, still warm and her nails painted this almost black dark blue and I just held her hand and tried to imagine the world without us and for about one second I was a good enough person to hope she dies so she would never know that I was going, too. But then I wanted more time so we could fall in love. I got my wish, I suppose I left my scar.

What else? She is so beautiful. You don't get tired of looking at her. You never worry if she is smarter than you: You know she is. She is funny without ever being mean. I love her. I am so lucky to love her. You don't get to choose if you get hurt in this world, but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices. I hope she liked hers."'

"She did, Hazel liked her choices."

The end