By Jessica Johansson
Winter 2012 Kaplan Award Winner
Every morning my mom would wake me up and the smell of breakfast would hit me. I was allowed to watch television in the mornings as I ate my breakfast, which was a huge incentive for me to wake up. I was always in a slight zombie state at first but my body would slowly start to wake up as I sat and watched the different animated characters on the screen. My mom would have to rush me up the stairs so that I would change and be ready to go for school. Getting ready was easy because I wore the same uniform everyday. We had to wear a white dress with red polka dots covering it, a bright red blazer with our “Ockbrook” school emblem printed on the front, black shoes, and I was allowed to pick between a red or a white scrunchy to tie my thick, blonde hair back with.
We left a little early every morning so that we could pick up my best friend Allison on the way. That was the best part about going to school, friends. Allison and I knew exactly how to make each other laugh and we were attached at the hip from when she got in my car to when school was out. We would go over to each other’s houses at least a couple times a week.
I loved going to Allison’s house, it was a typical English home with flower print on all of the couches, the smell of her mother’s Earl Grey tea brewing in the kitchen, and the television always on in the background, blaring BBC news. Allison’s mom was always happy to see us and would have cookies and juice out for us when we got there after a day at school.
Some days we would go to my house and we would always have eating competitions. We never failed to amaze my mom at how much our little stomachs could manage to fit. Allison loved fruit, especially grapes. My mom would always buy us grapes and have them washed and sitting out on the wooden kitchen table for us to snack on when we got back. Allison filled her mouth with as many grapes as she could possibly fit and then I would do anything to try to make her laugh, often times resulting in half the grapes flying out of her mouth and bouncing around on the kitchen floor.
One morning as I was putting on my white school dress my mom told me to take my time because we didn’t have to pick Allison up that morning. Allison had gone sledding with her dad on the weekend and broken her leg so she was stuck in the hospital. It felt weird not having my partner in crime with me at school but she was only supposed to be out of school for a week or so, so I dealt with it and visited her after school a couple times.
She was going to have to have crutches, which I was excited about because I had never used them before. I bought bright colored stickers of her favorite Disney characters to decorate her two crutches with, so at least she was waddling around in style. She loved it.
Allison couldn’t go outside during recess but we secretly loved it because I was allowed to stay in with her to play and keep her company. This is what we would have done every recess if we were allowed so we were happy as can be. I would grab her crutches from her and pretend to fall down, and we would both screech with laughter. This often resulted in one of the teachers coming along and telling us we needed to be a little more quiet…oops! We read so many books, we talked about the different fantasies we both had, and most of all we just laughed. It didn’t take much for us to be happy, as long as we had each other.
I got home from school one day and my mom said she needed to talk to me about something. I remember the look on my mother’s face and I knew there was something wrong. Did something happen to my dad, were my siblings all right, what could possibly be going on. A tear started to fall down her cheek and I remember my heart started to pound, and I was scared.
“Mom, what’s the matter?” I said to her. She just looked at me with this blank stare in her eyes. Her lips were slowly trembling as she opened them to tell me some news that was going to significantly change my life.
“Jess, when Allison broke her leg the doctor’s found something…” she said. At first I was a little relieved because if this news was about Allison it was ok. I had just seen her that day and she was doing fine, just a little bit handicapped, but nothing that hindered us from having fun. I waited for my mom to tell me the rest.
“They found cancer when she had her x-ray for her leg Jess,” she told me as tears were welling up in her eyes.
At this point in time I didn’t know much about cancer and I knew she was going to be ok. It would take more than a sickness to get rid of Allison, she was my partner in crime. Cancer didn’t mean anything to me.
I was upset and I felt so bad for Allison but I just knew that I had to keep acting like nothing was wrong and we would be fine. Nothing could break us apart. Nothing.
My mom told me a little about the cancer and informed me of the process she was going to have to go through. She was using big words that I didn’t understand. All I wanted to know was if she would be ok and my mom told me she was going to have to go to the hospital for treatments that wouldn’t be easy on her but they would make her better in the end, hopefully.
At this point in my life I had never thought about death or had anyone close to me die. I still had my great grandparents in my life and death to me was something that wasn’t real and would never happen to anyone I loved. I knew Allison would get better. She wasn’t allowed to leave me.
After the rough conversation with my mom I immediately called Allison to talk. I remember when she answered the phone and sounded as normal as ever. I told her that my mom had told me about the cancer and she responded with a happy, “yeah, it’s all bollocks, I’ll get through it.”
Allison’s parents were very optimistic and so was everyone else in her life. We went about everyday as we usually would until her first chemo session. She wasn’t able to come to school for a while after she had her chemo which I hated because now I had to go outside with everyone else and wasn’t allowed to stay in during recess messing about with Allison.
My mom picked me up from school and took me to visit Allison and that is when I started to get a little worried. I had never seen her look so pale and unable to do anything. She still had her big smile on her face but the eyes behind her glasses didn’t have the same twinkle to them as usual. I could tell she didn’t feel well. I wanted to have an eating competition with her because I knew this would make her feel better but she denied my request, telling me she couldn’t really eat.
When I was walking through the hospital with my mom I remember looking around and seeing so many sick people. Some that looked even worse than Allison did and that is when I started to realize how bad all of this was. I started to question my optimism but then I would just think, wait it’s Allison, she is only eleven years old, she will be fine. The only other time I had been in a hospital was for a check up or when I was going to meet my new baby brother and my baby sister. These were all happy times at the hospital. This was the first time I realized the smell at the hospital and the sad looking people lying in their beds, bored, just wanting to get out of the building which they had probably already spent way too much time in. This was the point in time that hospital’s changed in my mind, they went from this place of new lives and the happy faces of nurses trying to cheer you up after getting injected by a needle. Now the white walls didn’t look so bright anymore, it all looked fake and the feeling I had wasn’t happiness anymore, the happiness had been taken over by the fear of life and death.
Now I was getting a little more worried. Her parents didn’t have the same optimism they had had before. Why was everything changing? She was still going to be ok, right?
I jumped onto the bed next to her and we watched a couple episodes of the “Rugrats”. After the second episode she looked over at me and said, “Jess, I’m scared.”
At this point in time I knew that the one thing I was able to do was to cheer her up. I didn’t say anything back. I just ran to her mom’s bathroom and took some of the makeup that she let us play with. I painted my face in the most hideous way and ran back into Allison’s room. Allison started to laugh hysterically. Her parents came in to see what the fuss was about and they started to laugh too. This is when I knew, to get through this thing they called cancer, I needed to get her mind off it and she needed to stay strong.
I saw her almost everyday and after a couple chemo sessions she started to wear bandanas. I thought this was just something new she liked doing, so I would grab one of them when I came over and I’d wear one just like her. We always loved to match, and she would always have a spare bandana for me. I never thought anything of it but one day I asked her why she wore them everyday.
She sat in silence. Allison never sat in silence. I was confused at what the problem was, until I saw her fragile hands slowly slide the piece of colorful cloth off her head. She had big patches of hair missing. This was part of what this stupid thing called cancer was doing to her.
She looked so ashamed when she pulled her bandana off that had been covering the patches. She explained to me that because of the chemo her hair was slowly falling out and she hated it, mostly because she thought she looked like a boy.
I was speechless. No one had explained this part to me. It was all just the process of getting better right?
I helped her put the bandana back on and we quickly changed the subject. I was confused. I didn’t understand what was going on.
She went to the hospital again and my mom drove me over to see her. I bought her stickers and coloring books that we both sat and scribbled in. Nothing was going to happen. Nothing.
I hated not having Allison at school, she was my other half! No one was as fun as Allison. Now I would start looking forward to getting picked up everyday so that I could go to her house to hang out.
My mom drove me over to Allison’s house as usual and I ran straight to her room. She looked so tired, she had huge dark rings around her eyes, she had lost all of her hair at this point and I could tell she was weak. I tried to make her laugh but she wasn’t able to let out a big laugh as usual. I just saw her tiny lips grin as she looked at me. I started to get a little worried but I knew that chemo makes you worse before you are better. My mom had told me about this. I did my best to make her laugh but she didn’t have much energy. We watched some more ‘Rugrats” in silence which was always ok. We just loved each other’s company.
My mom came to pick me up and I was groaning because I didn’t want to leave. We never wanted to stop playing. If we could have had it our way we would have never slept, just played and watched television. Allison’s parents said bye to me as I ran out the door and they looked as happy as always. That’s why I knew that Allison would be fine. They were so reassuring.
Another morning of school rolled around and I woke up dreading going to school, I just wanted school to be over so that I could go hang out with my best friend, who I hoped was feeling better this day. I got dropped off after getting a big kiss on my forehead and ran into my classroom. Everyone was so quiet, I ran in yelling at my friend Luke, who looked at me with a sad expression and slowly told me, “Allison died.”
“Allison died. Allison died. Allison died.” No. This must be a joke I thought, I was with her just yesterday. My teacher started to walk towards me and she had the same expression that Luke had on his face. I felt like my heart had been ripped out of my chest. I felt my face turning red. I felt my eyes filling up with tears. This couldn’t be true.
It was true.
The brightness her parent’s always seemed to have was fake, Allison’s little smile was fake, my life just flipped upside down and I didn’t know what to do. Everything was so different.
The school I went to was a private school in Derby, England, with about 120 kids at it, and on this day the school grounds were quiet, and dark. It was a typical cloudy English day but it felt like the place was haunted, the air felt heavier, the clouds looked darker, and my entire body was aching as I dragged it out towards the cars. As soon as I saw the familiar car and my mom sitting behind the wheel I ran. I ran as fast as my little legs could take me. I needed to hold someone that I was close too. I needed my mom more than I have ever needed my mom. She always knew how to make me feel better. She would make this go away.
As soon as I was in her arms I felt the tears pour out of my eyes and she held me so hard. I was lost. A person that I saw everyday was now gone. I didn’t know what to do from here.
I was told that Allison’s parents wanted me to sing the song that we would always sing together at her funeral. I knew it was going to be hard but I knew I had to do it. I had other classmates join me to sing the song. We all stood in a row at the front of the church in our uniforms, we all looked so young and fragile. We had hardly begun our lives, we were all so young, and now one of us was missing from the front. Seeing her parents for the first time since I had gotten the news was not easy. They both looked so sad and I realized that if I was feeling like I was, they must have been dying inside. They both gave me a huge hug and I tried to keep the tears in but I couldn’t. I could hardly breathe.
The funeral was in a huge, beautiful church near our houses. There were at least one hundred people sitting in the pews, dressed completely in black. It was my turn to go up in front of all these people to sing our song. I stood up and I felt like there were cement blocks taped to my feet. I looked down the entire way I was walking, knowing there were eyes on me. I was wearing a black dress with black frilly socks and my shiny black shoes.
I made it to the front and I turned around to face the crowd. Then I made the biggest mistake of all, I looked to my left and there was a wooden coffin, containing my best friend. I needed her to be singing this with me, holding my hand but it wasn’t possible. It hit me hard and the piano started to play the tune to our song. I started to sing but there was a huge lump in my throat and once again I felt like I couldn’t breathe. My classmates were struggling too but no one had known Allison like I had. I was lucky. I stood there and sang to the best of my ability, with only half the words actually coming out of my mouth. The front of my dress was slowly getting wetter and wetter as the tears were dripping down from my face. This song that I loved so much and used to sing over and over felt like it was dragging on for eternity, this song had never felt so long in the past. Finally the song was done and I ran over to my mom who once again knew how to make me feel that little bit better.
This was one of the worst days of my life but it is one of the moments that changed me to be the person I am today. All of a sudden I realized that your life could be taken away from you like that. Allison could hardly move, yet she managed to put that little grin on her face. I find myself complaining about things that are nothing compared to what she went through and I almost feel embarrassed. I have learned to live life to its fullest. You live once and you need to do things that make you happy. I think about Allison every once in a while and I smile. We had the best of times and I know she is sitting on my shoulder looking over me. Allison changed my life forever, and I will never forget that.