I recently got off this random chat site that connected people all around the world to speak to each other. Tirelessly writing my essays, I visited the sight out of curiosity and boredom.
Random people go by; different faces each time, yet one struck me in particular. A beautiful, mixed looking young woman randomly appeared into my screen.
In the moment of stupidity and teenage-audacity, I wrote to her a simple "You have one of the nicest smiles I have ever seen".
Note this is not of malice or sexual tension, but to highlight one's day by stating the fact of her aesthetic beauty.
She then replies "Thanks hahaha", a break in awkward tension of non-acquaintances becoming a friendship in a matter of an hour or so.
I then assumed that was the ice-breaker; the moment in which breaks the awkward state that even though we didn't know each other, we knew each other.
She then opens up to my aesthetic compliment to her smile, and says "that's what my doctor tells me all the time...I think he likes me or something...he sees me 2 times a week".
How odd...Am I possibly talking to a mentally-ill patient who must attend therapy, or a girl who has doctor-patient relationship issues? "Unbelievable", I thought. What is truly behind the story of this girl and 2 days a week of visitations to the doctor?
I then ask, "Why do you have to go to the doctor so often?"
She replies, "Because I have cancer."
A loud, ecstatic heart in my chest begins to simmer down---my mind, too, is of shock and awe to such news. Am I truly speaking to a cancer patient, or another girl willing to make a joke out of such a blasphemy to human aliveness? My laughter suddenly turned to stiffness of blatant sadness. We then get into depth with talking about her medical impairment. It was a cancer of somewhere in her chest that grew rapidly, like an infection which overruled the Immune System in a matter of time.
My heart began to feel so empty, almost as if I felt the pain she felt, not of the cancer, but of emotion. Trying to fit myself in her shoes, I try to recooperate the conversation with all my capabilities to making it brighter and full of humor. She shows evident that her skin is so pale of the disease and we laugh it off, calling her a lightskin, or in literary terms, someone, preferably African American, whose blood is mixed with races to create a lighter complexion. It's amazing how a girl like this can smile through the the blissful reality that one day, she will be not be with us. Writing this makes me feel more and more isolated; like a duckling losing his pack and family to follow, having no sense of direction or conscious. I, too, was lost during our conversation because while we spoke about her cancer, I thought of my cancer; any illness or flaw that caused me to feel pain and number my days. So while she spoke of her issues, images of pain and tears willow throughout my mind. This girl has done a beating my heart in one, simple online conversation.
She then gets into the topic of reality; understanding that one day, she will no longer be with us, that her days as a human were numbered. This teetered in my mind: how can she suppress so much pain, anger, sadness, and all the other emotions gathered from the information that she has a major disease. "Chemo is no option for me...I will die". God do those words hurt. Here I am, a random on the internet, being so affectionately remorseful and mourning to a person I had just met minutes before. Was my purpose of being on the internet and this EXACT time and EXACT website made by a higher being? God? Allah? All these questions didn't matter to me because here I was: a healthy teenage kid talking to a girl who has years to live. I didn't want to upset her anymore, or remind her that cancer is impatiently waiting for her to surrender her life, so I just tried to positively affect her...even just for the glimpse of sunlight in her dark tunnel in her mind.
I try to forget that part of her for now and ask her information like "Where are you from?" or "do you have any other social networks I can contact you by?" It was obvious that I became so intrigued by this girl. It wasn't of sex or humor, but for the passion of human connection. I can tell she did not want to shed such information...was I coming unto her too strong? She made me feel as if I was just another guy trying to impress her or charismatic-ally sway her into my cyber arms.
"I'm from Canada" she anxiously replies.
Canada...here I am, in California, and I am so dearly affected by her life. Thousands of miles away and it feels as if she were sitting right in front of me, feeling the vibrancy of emotion and mixed feelings. I then confront her, "I want to be your pen pal". She surprisingly smiles. Hoping to get an okay on the deal, she denies my request. Am I boring her or am I simply repulsive? We then talk more about cancer and she elaborates on why she does not give me any info to contact her by...
It was the concept of being too attached. She believed that one day, when she assumed she was gone, she did not want me, or anyone, to feel an enlarged weight put upon our backs of emotion. She did not want to have Instagram or Twitter because it would affect her close friends and family---including me. Did I just become a figure of friendship to a girl who might pass away in a matter of years? Is this an accomplishment, an ordeal, an honor? Or shall I keep this in my recognition only to be another conversation waiting to be forgotten?
One significant part of this conversation was my passion to tell her she was gonna be okay. Maybe in another life, or another realm of reality, there is hope and the act of miracles happen frequently. Unfortunately, we live in a society that confesses to realism. I tell her to "Keep Smiling" and to "Think Positively", but I can't help but feel useless and irrelevant. I then tell her "Miracles happen" and involve realistic theories that people have and will survive to cancer. My words seem worthless...Her mind is set that she will one day simply die.
A haunting ideal is that this beautiful girl has so many capabilities and opportunities in life. She even told me she was supposed to be in Law school for college. Dreams truly exist and are created, so why couldn't she believe that her existence was of necessity and value? Cancer is a dreadful antagonist who feeds on the selfishness of greed and eating of someone's being. "When you kill someone, you do not only take away his life, but the possibilities and opportunities he could have done" said by Harry Morgan of the television series "Dexter". Cancer is a serial killer on the loose who, too, murders the future and possibilities of others.
Towards the ending of conversation, before she purposely ended our conversation, she begins to tell me things such as "Love Life", "Take Pictures", or "Fall in Love". This segment is what I would like to call the eulogy. It was almost as if I had taken a large responsibility in honoring her words before she dies, like a favor or wish she had for me before she could not tell me no more. She then hits me with the emotional stabbing, "When you get married I want you to remember me". Can a girl this far and unacquainted with me become almost of a guardian angel to me? You normally would take that phrase and just agree without ever thinking about it again, but as I read that exact statement, I foreshadowed a future at my wedding, thinking of that very exact moment she had told me to remember her by. In decades, will I remember this porcelain skinned girl who dramatically came into my life with the dark realisms of death and the values of priorities in our lives?
She ends our conversation by intently not trying to hurt me. No matter what I say from "Please don't skip me" or "Stay with me lol", she did not seem to change her mind. She was fixated on the thought that she became such a big part of my mind and heart at that moment, and did not want to bear anymore distress onto me once her passing had gone. It was a moment of understanding, that she did not want me to develop a relationship between her when the ending will truly hurt me---her death.
"I am not an emotional person...and I'm almost crying...because you are so nice."
My heart shattered. I see this girl write this and seconds later, tears break. Not tears of dying or tears for sadness, but tears that I made this one girl feel special for one of the lasting times. I am not saying i was the reason for her smile, but I wish and I hope I was. While the tear dripped down her face, she wiped it and smiled. Her smile reminds me that even through all the bloodshed, the violence, and everything else wrong with the world, there is a glimmer of hope that makes us smile and become content and happy. That same smile will one day reigh upon my remembrance and shed tears across my eyes because that is the smile of happiness. Happiness of content, no regrets, and enlightenment.
"I'm gonna think of you for the rest of my life....XOXOXOXOXO"
*Stranger has disconnected*
Oh the pain I felt---a minute of sorrow that felt as if it had been an eternity of loneliness. I pleaded and asked for her to stay, but she didn't want me to get hurt. The pain she had foretold in her head if we had gotten closer would have been devastating to me, and even this was such an impact on my life. I had to write this, in the midst of all my assignments and tired self, because this will be a day and moment I will never forget. Was it love, was it the beginning of a friendship, was it fate that set us together to speak? It was all of it. I loved this girl emotionally, I was happy with our conversation as friends, and I have been so grateful and appreciative to have spoken to her. To you, she will be a possible fictionary character or someone who will be of non-effect to your life, but to me, she was a godsend. She brought all the factors of human emotion in a matter of minutes into my life: depression, sadness, ecstasy, laughter, and so on. This girl will forever be in my heart; its that simple. I will love and respect each woman, whether a niece, daughter, wife, teacher, etc and view them as "The Girl" because she will what I value as a person today.
One day, I hope I get an email or some sort of notification that she still sees me. I left my account username to her and hope that one day, she will let me know how she is doing. The purpose in general is to value life and live life to the fullest. So many people die so young due to diseases and accidents, and until you meet someone like "The Girl" such as I did, you will understand the heartache and emotion caused with just one person. I am trully grateful that I am able to write this, otherwise, she will just be a figment of my imagination.
This is where I wish I could have done much more than I actually did. I wish I had used some sort of charm to enchant her with to be able to persuade her of me getting to know her better or staying in contact with her. She did not want pity and did not want to cause heartache in the end---but I did. I wanted to feel the deep emotion of crying over her because here was crying over me and her own life. I wish so many things had gone right, but I also have yet to think whether what I did was right (maybe that is why she had not kept leading me on). One day, I will have the chance to meet that beautiful girl, whether it'd be my dreams, heaven, purgatory, or any other realm you can think of.
This is where I wish I could have done much more than I actually did. I wish I had used some sort of charm to enchant her with to be able to persuade her of me getting to know her better or staying in contact with her. She did not want pity and did not want to cause heartache in the end---but I did. I wanted to feel the deep emotion of crying over her because here was crying over me and her own life. I wish so many things had gone right, but I also have yet to think whether what I did was right (maybe that is why she had not kept leading me on). One day, I will have the chance to meet that beautiful girl, whether it'd be my dreams, heaven, purgatory, or any other realm you can think of.
I love you and my prayers will always go to you, "The Girl".
Don
No comments:
Post a Comment