Initially, I was going to write a short narrative based on Pearl Jam's song 'Last Kiss.' Actually, I did - last night. It ended up 1000+ words as you may have known from the previous post so there was no way I was going to reproduce that essay from memory EVEN IF the word limit had been increased.
I sat there stoning for a while, wondering what to write on the topic of sadness and death.
Though it pained me, I decided to write what my sister called a tribute of sorts to our friend, Erica.
It's not really awe-inspiring or anything like that, but I tried my best and what with the word-limit and time-constraint, this was what I came up with:
There are two things in this world that are absolutely certain – life and death. Everything that lives eventually comes to an end. The question is: How young should a person be to be considered ‘too young to die?’
I had a friend named Erica. She was a happy, loving child of Caucasian and Asian descent. Her smile and aura of joy never failed to light up a room. Erica’s skin was pale – unusually so – no one knew it then, but it was a harbinger of bad things to come.
One day after school, I was given the bad news – Erica had just been diagnosed with leukaemia. A cancer of the blood, it was usually characterized by fainting spells and increased vulnerability to infections. She had always been a sickly child, but no one truly saw this coming. The diagnosis was akin to a slap in the face to her parents and friends.
She was nine when we learned of her disease. Initially, I was devastated. However, my mother insisted that she was young and would surely recover. I believed her.
The chemotherapy was a harrowing experience for Erica. I visited her in the hospital after a recent bout one day. She showed me an emptied tissue box. Tentatively, I peered within and what it held broke my heart. Inside laid numerous strands of her beautiful golden-brown hair that had fallen – a common side effect of chemotherapy. “It’s falling, but I’m keeping them, see?” She bravely flashed that huge grin of hers although you could clearly see weariness radiating from her eyes. I spent some time with her and before bidding her goodbye I assured her: “You’ll get better soon.”
That was the last time I saw Erica alive. Riding home from school a few days later – not unlike the day I received the news of her diagnosis – my mother informed me that Erica had started haemorrhaging internally and could not be saved.
My face betrayed no obvious emotion during her wake that night. For a long time, I leaned against her piano – the instrument she would never grow up to master – and wondered how she could have died so young. After much reflection, I decided that there is no age where it is considered ‘too young to die.’ Although Erica had only been nine at the time of her passing, her life had been filled with happiness and many joyful relationships. Excluding the painful last days of treatment, you could say that she had lived a fine life.
However young she may have been, I have learned to come to terms with one simple fact – life can be uncertain, but as long as every bit of it is savoured, there will be no regrets when it is taken away.
*** The End ***
Again, my self-esteem has taken a deep plunge.
Why am I not good enough?
It's one thing to fail at Accounts, which I absolutely have no interest in.
It's something else entirely when you fail at doing something you love.
It's like, if I can't succeed doing something I enjoy, am I doomed to spend the rest of my life doing something I don't like?
Succeed and be miserable or be try and fail repeatedly to do something I love?
Pick the latter, you say. D'oh! Is there really a choice?
But think again, even if it's something you love - doesn't constant failure seem daunting?
Sigh. Nevertheless I will work as hard as I can to improve my drawing as well as my writing.
Who knows? Success may lie not too far down the road.
Gambateh.
Wish me luck.
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