Authors note

13-fading

everything we did over those months was to keep Jessica happy, and to help us all to forget the pain that had  now become  an interlaced formality throughout our lives. Time seemed to go by much faster than it was permitted to in normal terms, and just like all the fears we have to face, the cancer had to catch up with us eventually. 

One afternoon, Jessica insisted she bake lunch for both of us. She was standing over the sink, washing up after she'd placed some homemade bread rolls in the oven. I was so excited, for this was the first timed she'd baked anything at all since she told me she was ill. carefully I walked up behind her to help her dry the dishes, but she lost her footing and crumpled backwards towards the floor. 

I caught her, but then fell with her I realised that she was much too heavy for me to hold up. Feeling me under her, Jessica began to tear up, the slight cries slowly morphing into deep sobs. "Hey, shh, it's ok, it's alright baby, I've got you, I've got you." and with all the strength in my body I hauled her up off of the floor. She fell asleep in my arms once I'd brought her up to bed, and I was glad she could manage to get some rest, I was sure that she'd be right again by morning. 

But the next day, she grew weaker, could hardly hold herself up, the medicine the doctors had given us once she'd been discharged from their care could do nothing but ease her excruciating pain. So I had her airlifted back to the hospital; the best one for local palliative care, just in case; I wanted nothing less than the best for my Jessica. 

She complained all day and she cried, oh it hurt to see her cry knowing that I could do so little to help her. I knew she was afraid to die, everyone was. but luckily the day that that would happen was not today, I called just in time for the doctors to give her the meds she needed and she was soon strong enough to carry herself out of bed once more. 

I came every day to see her at the hospital, and take her on walks across the grounds. our favourite place to go was the little park, where we sat under the shade of a cherry blossom by the river and talked for hours. Jessica became increasingly quieter, so quiet it unsettled me. I say that we talked, mostly I just talked at her, trying desperately to lighten the mood and lift this constant dark shadow off of us, even just for a moment or two. 

As the days dragged on she grew weaker still, and most days she lay silent and empty, as if she had already been made a ghost by the alien cells writhing and thriving inside her. This was not her. I brushed my hands through her thinking hair, I trusted her to put up a fight against this thing, but she was so weak, the chemo created as much hell within her body as the cancer itself, but she would pull through, I told myself. 

It wasn't long until she became completely bed-ridden, I bit back my tears as her gorgeous chestnut locks fell from her head in huge clumps whenever I ran gentle fingers through them. She smiled vacantly up at me, A feeble, failing smile. After all of it, I was so proud of her, we all were. The doctors gave her 6 months to live, although they added that at this point, Jessica's particular form of cancer was particularly aggressive and despite their best efforts it would continue to grow. Exceding all plausible expectations, Jessica lasted a year, and despite it all, we had had the best year.