ink & illness

My Other Half

To My Best Friend,

I could not ask for a better person to have spent my life with. You have been there for me through everything. The thick and thin, ugly and beautiful, painful and harsh. You have seen me at my worst and my best, and if I had to do it all again, I would not pick any other person. I will never be able to put into words the love and gratefulness and sorrow I have for you. You have shown me how to love someone with all their heart and never give up on them. You were there for me in my darkest moments, and in my lightest. You have been there since the very beginning.

I still remember the day we met. We were 4 years old then, which is so strange to think about; it was only 12 years ago, but that feels like a lifetime ago after everything that's happened. My parents had just dropped me off at the preschool down the street from our house. I clung to my mom's leg and cried for her to bring me back home. I remember the way she had to pry my fingers from her skirt and kiss my tears away, and I remember when she pointed at you with your curly, brown hair and glasses two sizes too big and said "Look, it's the little boy from the park. Why don't you go say hi." I remember sniffling and just watching you from the doorway, those glasses buried in a book so big you couldn't even hold it. You were laying on the floor and flipping the pages every once in a while. I remember finally walking over to you and asking what you were doing, "Reading." You've never been one for small talk, even then. "Well, what are you reading?" You shrugged and struggled to close the book for a second before looking up at me, "I don't know," You looked around at all the other kids for a second before whispering, "wanna know a secret?" I was 4, of course I did. "I wasn't actually reading, I don't even know how." I remember giggling so hard, I thought it was the funniest thing in the world, which I guess back then it was. "Why were you doing it then?" You giggled too and shrugged again, sitting up, "Cause I can, and I see my mommy do it. She says it's what smart people do."

I think about that moment a lot, the moment we started. I think about how inseparable we became after that day. I think about you a lot. I think about how smart you've become, how caring, selfless, and ambitious you've become. It's funny, I have so much to say to you and I feel as though there will never be enough words to truly, completely tell you it all. Which is so ironic it's almost unreal because there is a word exactly describing that, laconic, it means saying much in very few words. It's fitting really because you've always been better with words than I have, but these last few months that I've spent in the cold, sterile rooms were a little bit more bearable when I had pieces of you with me. The day we met you were reading a dictionary, the Oxford English Dictionary and maybe that is why you have always been better with words than me. You've never been afraid of speaking your mind, even if it was to tell me I was being annoying or rude, and I cannot thank you enough for that. You always said exactly what you meant, you kept everything real when everyone else sugar coated their words. You surrounded yourself with them constantly, so thought if I couldn't have you with me, at least I could have your words. I have read the dictionary too many times to count now, and it has helped me in some way or another; whether it be through comfort or knowledge it has helped. I hope that my words will help you as much as yours have helped me.

For the amount of times that we weren't together, there were double that we were. I see you so often, and yet I feel like it's not enough. I feel this strange need to see you all the time, and I think it's because I want to give you as many happy memories as possible before I'm gone. I've never been able to tell you this before, but considering that these could be my last words to you, it feels wrong not to. Alexithymia, an inability to describe emotions in a verbal manner. I feel so many ways about us and our friendship that I don't know how to say it, but I'll try my best because that is what you have always done for me. I feel so much guilt for all the time I've taken from you and the pain I've caused you. You were also 6 when I was diagnosed, you weren't supposed to understand what pain and death and cancer looked like at that age. Know about it, yes, but see it first hand, no, and I am so sorry that I am the reason that you did. I'm sorry that you've spent more time in a hospital room than at parties or clubs or dances. I'm sorry that you lost friends because they didn't understand how selfless you were being by constantly being by my side as I suffered. I'm sorry that I was too selfish to tell you to go hang out with them anyway, that I was too selfish to suck up my suffering for once and tell you that I was fine and to let you go and get a break because you deserved them. You were constantly surrounded by the suffocating pain that was me because I couldn't let you go. I love you and have loved you so much for so long that I have struggled to come to terms with the fact that I will have to let you go. But that is another thing I feel guilt and anger and indescribable things over, because I get the easy part of letting go. I won't have to live knowing that I had to let you go, let us go, and you will. I am so sorry for that too.

I think that is part of why I'm writing this letter to you, it is not only my final goodbye to you, but it is also my last everything to you. Absquatulate, to leave suddenly, to leave without saying goodbye. I promised that I would do every and anything I could with you for as long as we were given, but that is the one thing that I will not do. I will not leave without saying goodbye. You have been my everything for the longest time and I won't ever be ready to leave you, but what sucks about cancer, is knowing that I'm going to have to; way earlier than I should. We've both known the inevitable since we were kids, and you still chose to stay. You chose to be by my side and be there for me, even when everyone else shunned you for it. For that, I can never thank you enough, but I will spend the rest of the limited time I have trying to do so. Please, please, please never give up. You have always told me not to give up and keep pushing, and now I'm telling you to never give up. I know we promised to be there when the other got married and be our kids' godparents, and I'm sorry that those plans were cut short and ripped away from us, but please don't give up on them. If you can't do it with me, then do it for me, for us, and know that I will always be there with you, watching and protecting. You can do anything you put your mind to, don't sell yourself short, and just enjoy life. We've been told countless times that we're two parts of one whole but please don't stop living just because I did. You have so much time left, use it to do everything we planned, so you can tell me all about it the next time we see each other, wherever that may be.

You will forever and always be the Buzz to my Woody, SpongeBob to my Patrick, Bert to my Ernie, Chandler to my Joey. You will forever and always be my everything.

- Your Lacuna