Before I Die

From Fearing to Fearless

Tears stream down my face as I clutch onto the hammer in my hand. The doctor beckons me to the open door. I walk in and find The Demolition Room, or the DR. Basically the DR is a room where people who are just told they have cancer come and let their anger out or just sit and cry. Of course the doctor has to monitor you from a two way mirror just in case the patient decides to use the hammer for other things, but for the most part I am alone.

I take the hammer and bang the wall. It goes through the wall and I take it back out. This feels good even though tears blur my vision. I take another whack at the wall and continuously hit it as I look around at the other demolished areas. This is the room of despair where people go when they find out they are going to die.

"Why. Did. This. Happen. To. Me?" I say to myself after each hit.

I had a half an hour in the DR, which for me is enough time to look and sound composed when I tell my family, especially my little sister the news.

I am now walking down the halls of the hospital basement where the DR is located trying to find a bathroom so I can wash my face to get rid of the running makeup. When I look in the mirror my tears start to flow again. I am going to going to lose my hair. When I first found out I had cancer all I thought about was that I was going to die, but now all the other terrible parts of having it come to mind. I am going to lose my hair. I will basically live at the hospital, while I get treatment. My life is never going to be the same.

After I clean myself up I grabbed my keys and head home. My sister and parents are waiting in the kitchen. I had told the doctor not to call them so they are smiling at me when I walk in the room. I try to keep up a brave attitude, but I feel a lump form in my throat and a single tear escapes the emotional barriers I put up.

My mother sees my distress and rushes over.

"What's wrong?" She puts her hand on my back and looks at me and when I look into those caring emerald eyes my emotional barriers shatter.

"I have cancer!"

• • •

Now I have had cancer for a year and have graduated from high school. I graduated third in my class, which is a big deal, but I couldn't help thinking that it wouldn't matter since I would be dead soon anyways. I had thought this way for my whole time with cancer so far, until one day my approach on having a limited time to live changed.

When my parents passed away in a car accident about a month after I was diagnosed, my sister and I were depressed, but as I was cleaning out some of their dresser drawers I found a list sitting with the socks. The list was a bucket list, a list of things to do before you die. Tears cascaded down my cheeks. The date on the list was the day of my parents wedding. They had made bucket lists on their wedding for things they wanted to do in their marriage before they died. Some of the things on the list were crossed out, but others weren't because they thought they had more time to do them.

At that moment a light ignited in me. Most people never know when they will die and never get a heads up, but I have one, so I decided then and there that I would make a Before I Die list that I would complete with a group of my closest friends. If I knew that I had a limited time left then I would live it to the fullest.

Dear Readers,

Thanks so much for reading and if you have any comments and suggestions that would be great. Stay tuned for the next short chapter where I present the Before I Die list.

Thanks for reading!

-Author_13