terminal

Moth

She doesn't know if it happened slowly or all at once, but it happened -

A morning came when Aviana was too weak to sit upright in bed, and

then she threw up all over her covers - she stayed home from school that

day; When it happened again that afternoon, and evening, and at four

in the morning, her parents decided to keep her home the whole week;

Usually, one of her parents would just stay home with her, but sometimes

they had to ask an aunt, uncle, or grandparent to come; and once they

even had to ask to Brynn to stay home from school to sit with her;

Aviana liked that day because Brynn let her watch movies with kissing

and sometimes there was a naked butt; Brynn explained that normally she

would never break that rule, but Aviana needed a giggle and something to

take her mind off the fact that she is sick; They talked about falling in love

and how someday Brynn would find someone she loves and that she would

probably, definitely, see that person's butt; Brynn talked about wanting to be

a mom someday, and how she would name her first daughter after Aviana,

that way Aviana would have a second chance at living a full life - it made her

sad to hear Brynn talk about a future she would never get to see, and that

she would want her first daughter to be an extension of her; Aviana told her

that it had to be a middle name, "So that she gets to still be a new girl," and

it made Brynn cry so hard, but she promised; Once Lilly refused to leave the

house for school because she said she felt in her heart that she needed to

stay home with Aviana; it was a battle her parents refused to fight because

they would not deny the girls time with their dying sister; and Aviana was

so aware that she was dying most days that she talked about herself as if

she was already gone; Worse than that? Nobody tries to correct her either;

So she treats it like practice - as the white light in her sleep gets whiter,

and waking up gets harder - Aviana will change the way she speaks about

herself and encourage others to make the transition slowly; It will be

less shocking that way, she thinks, if they all just look at the light and walk

towards it with confidence; Didn't her mom say something once? Wasn't it -

about a moth and a flame? Even if she can't remember what it was that

prompted her mother to say it, Aviana feels like she might be the moth -

and she thinks maybe the flame is the light, the end of the tunnel that means

she is certainly dead and there's no turning back; If she is a moth, she hopes

that she is like the pretty ones with bright greens and blues, the ones that

look more like butterflies in the night, that would be a treat to be something

beautiful through the darkness; Is there a way to wear dying well?