Cassandra's Dead Sister's Bucket List ✔

-7-

ONE YEAR AND THREE MONTHS BEFORE

- Jazmin -

I was born with an expiration date, like the cookies in my lunch box, and the milk in my fridge. It will all rot. It's unavoidable. It's destiny. However, some expiration dates are farther away than others. Mine, according to Doctor B, was pretty damn close. My ship had sailed, the cliff was close and I always knew I could never change the course of actions unfolding ahead of me. After all, we are all trapped in a domino that eventually...ends.

From my point of view, there were two ways in which a human being could face death. You could either bury yourself in depression or you could empower yourself with efficiency. For me, it was the latter. I needed to make decisions and I had to make them fast because my expiration date was close.

Despite my condition, I considered myself a lucky person. I had seen and done so many things before my sickness kicked in. Besides, having death so close to me had put things into perspective. My values and priorities had changed forever. Maybe my body always knew that the end was close, so it just got ready.

Now, to be completely honest with you, death scared the hell out of me. In particular, at night time, right when my eyelids started to feel heavy, sheer panic clutched at my throat. The mere thought of never waking up awakened all my fears. My coping system for that was something mom used to do with me and Cas when we were kids: writing lists of things we were thankful for. And, trust me, it was a good strategy because appreciation scares away anxiety.

This was my list last night:

◾I'm thankful for waking up today.

◾For smelling my dad's perfume as he hugged me and rushed to work.

◾I was able to sleep with less pain than yesterday.

◾My sister let me hug her today. She never does that.

◾I saw Matt; he acknowledged me with a small smile. Also, I am thankful Matt didn't see me when I stole a lavender flower from his field. I put the flower inside my copy of the Odyssey. I am thankful for lavenders. Their scent adds a whole new dimension to my reading time.

◾Damon kissed Elena in an episode from The Vampire Diaries today. It was on right when we were having dinner.

◼ Someone leaked pictures of Niall Horan sunbathing in Hawaii. I am happy I was alive to see him so happy—and hot.

Writing lists had always brought me comfort. There was nothing so good to me as to write small items one below the other on a blank sheet of paper, and just make them happen. Putting into ink the desires of my heart—even if it only meant cleaning up my closet—made it reachable, attainable. Oh! And the pleasure of scratching the items off once I was done with them? To me, that was the epitome of self-commitment and self-improvement. I had always believed that we all had to consider ourselves our most important project—in a healthy way.

There were also other lists in my journal. They were not so optimistic, but writing ugly things down helped me accept them because there was no other thing I could do about them. For example, I had a list of the missing organs in my body. It was short but enough to make a list:

Parts missing from my body:

◾Kidney (I was born with only one, and that was what made my disease so catastrophic).