terminal

A reminder...

Doctor appointments aren't as regular as they once were,

but they are still frequent enough; Aviana doesn't feel anything

about them anymore, but she can see it in her family's faces;

When a Monday rolls around that Aviana has to leave before

the sun comes up, Brynn and Lilly always wake up to give her

hugs and kisses; and her parents are back to going to every

single appointment together, which means her grandparents

show up in the mornings, too, and they are just as snuggly

as everyone else - Aviana understands that they want to soak

each moment "before" anything else happens; They all want

a memory of her before there is more bad news, a pristine

moment that they can point to and say 'but she was fine,'

before they tear up at the realization that has sunk into their

bones again: Aviana is going to die no matter what they say;

There is nothing in these appointments that changes her

terminal diagnosis; When she leaves for the doctors, she is dying -

and when she returns home from the doctors, she is dying -

This is why Aviana doesn't tell anyone when it is too hard

to tie her own shoes because it takes all of her breath to

stand back up, or that sometimes she gets tired sitting upright;

Aviana forces herself to eat even if she feels sick so that

nobody notices she is eating less - and she doesn't tell them

when she throws it all back up while she's in the shower;

Keeping the secrets is easier than seeing their faces fall

at each new symptom of dying that plagues her already frail

little body; The reminders of her mortality are both simple

and complex, so much so that it feels impossible for little

Aviana to know if she is doing the right thing by keeping these

truths close to her chest like the game of cards her father

sometimes plays when he needs to drink to forget his daughter

will someday be a picture on the mantle or in his pocket

rather than a real person laying in the bedroom next to his;

But the doctor appointments keep coming, and each time they do

there is no amount of lying or pretending that Aviana can do

to hide this reality away from her family, but she smiles anyway

so that if the worst every does come to pass at one of these visits -

At least their last memory of her will be of her smiling and kissing

their cheeks at the end of a tight hug filled to the brim with love.