terminal

Spiral

On the last day of her second round of chemotherapy,

Aviana is surprised to hear that her doctor wants her to

stay in the hospital overnight to be monitored and tested

before returning home, and the thing she notices is the

absolute horror in her mother's eyes; she says, "Does it -

does it have to be tonight? Can we come back after?"

She doesn't need to say that she wants to be home for

Christmas holiday too, but Aviana knows that's what she

means when she says 'after,' but the doctor insists -

They leave the room together while the nurses get

all of the tubes and equipment cleaned up; as she sits

in the chair with just the nurses, tears well up in her eyes -

"Something is wrong, isn't it?" she sobs to the nurses,

who sit with to tell her that it's normal to be more cautious;

"Doctors never ask to keep kids here unless they think

it is needed. That doesn't always mean something is wrong,"

but there is no comfort in her words, which seem to be true;

Brave Aviana stares them down with tears flooding her cheeks:

"But Christmas is in two days. Do doctors make kids

stay on holidays to be cautious?" Aviana's voice trembles,

and the nurse seems to understand that Aviana understands -

during any other week of the year their words would have given

the comfort they were formed to provide, but not this time!

When her mother comes back to get her, she tells Aviana,

"Come, Avi, we're going to go ride an ambulance," sighs -

Maybe someone else would have loved the opportunity,

or maybe she would have loved it at a different time, only

she isn't someone else or some time else; Aviana is Aviana;

She is her parent's little bird with cancer - she is sick -

so sick that they are making her stay overnight right before

Christmas holiday; As they walk to the emergency room for

their ride, Aviana does what she does best - asks a question:

"Will we still do our Christmas Eve cookie decorating for Santa?"

Her mother doesn't even pretend, she shakes her head,

"No, I don't think we will do that this year, sweetie," and

the little girl, poor Aviana, finds herself crying once again -

but not because they aren't making cookies, no! She cries

because the cancer finally took over her life so much that it

ruined something so big that it hurt worse than how adults

treated her differently and made school harder; it finally had

taken something away from her that she wasn't ready to lose;

Not even her mother's embrace could calm her as she spiraled

deeper and deeper into her thoughts - hating cancer for choosing her.