terminal

The Problem of Death

How could a child have the words to describe the words that tell

the story about her bones splintering under her weight and her

lungs ripping with each breath; Instead Aviana says that she can't

breathe, that she can't move, and so she spends most days in bed;

The decision came to pass that she needs an at home nurse, which

was important to specify that it wasn't hospice care because she was

not that close to death; This was because her parents still needed to be

at work and getting Brynn & Lilly to school and paying bills - they

needed Aviana to know with every drop of desperation that this is only

because they have to keep a roof over her head to keep her healthy,

food in the bellies of her cat and her sisters; lights and heat turned on

for these cold months; Aviana never held it against them because

she was well aware that the world would keep spinning once she died;

Brynn and Lilly would still grow up, and her parents would still grow old;

Aviana loved her nurse - they spent their time coloring, putting together

puzzles, sneaking catnip to Franklin, and watching movies until she

inevitably falls back asleep; Sometimes her nurse even stays for dinner

because she is a part of the family now; Eventually, Aviana starts to

tell the nurse about how hard it is to be alive and that she sometimes

wishes she would die already, "It makes my heart sad to see them

watching me die," she explains; Aviana talks about how death isn't a

problem for the dead - but rather for the living; Death hurts the people

left behind more than it ever hurts the person who died; Her nurse sees

Her point but urges her to be positive about it - "Your parents love

every moment they have with you because they knew it will end," but

Aviana takes issue with it - she was always going to die; Time was always

limited, and if it took her dying as a child to make them see, well -

were they really appreciating the time they shared before she was sick?

Her nurse assures her that it isn't that her parents didn't value her life

before she was diagnosed, just that it is easy to forget to live in each

individual moment because of how demanding the world is and how fast

the time passes; Aviana forgets sometimes that her world is smaller than

what her parents have because her world gets a little smaller the worse

her health gets; That night, when everyone is at the table, Avian starts a

new tradition - asking everyone to share a happy memory with each other;

Aviana goes first, and she talks about the first day Franklin came home

and how he ran around and hid from everyone and disappeared for hours

on end, only emerging to beg for food and pee on the kitchen floor; everyone

laughs, sharing a strange hiding spot where they found him; Aviana chose it

for the sole purpose of reminding her family that the cancer hasn't taken all

of the goodness from their lives and that Aviana still find happiness in the

process of her dying; isn't it better to be die happy anyway?