A Girl, A kind Man and A Little Bit Of Hope

Chapter 5; I Cant Carry On

Jenny was struggling, never in her life had she thought so hard about what she wanted and the thing was there was never going to be another time when she would.  It was just that the graveyard the other day had really terrified her about what was going to happen to her when she died.  She would lie there for centuries, slowly decaying until the pale empty corpse was gone and replaced by brown, fragile bones.  She wondered how many people would come to her funeral and what they would say; there was not much to say for such a short-lived life.  People should be saying about her doing parachute jumps and travelling the world and it should be her daughter or son talking about her.  Instead it would be her widowed mother who had bared such terrible news since Jenny had been diagnosed.  The aspect of death was starting to terrify her now, she wondered what it would feel like, whether it would hurt or would the ghosts be kind enough to give her a painless death with her family.  She had always wanted to die in some exotic way like whilst on an expedition but her story doesn’t go that way.  She was going to die in a hospital bed and that was final.

Rocking back and forth clutching her knees still thinking about what was going to happen, she was shaky and her eyes were wide with big dilated pupils.  The thick caramel hair was thinning and as Jenny rocked continuously she gazed out of the window with the sunlight shining through.  It shouldn’t be sunny she thought, if the winds and weather were decided on her mood Jenny thought it would be constant drizzle and the trickling of tears and rain drops.  The clouds would be grey and the darkened outlines would enforce a doomed gloomy climate.  It would always be cold because it was never ever warm anyway, there was no warmth in Jenny’s life that would thaw the cold and ice it was just always so chilly and breath-taking that nothing was perfect and nothing was good.  No one ever listened and nobody ever will, they are adults and it is like fighting another disease or a force of nature to try and get the attention of somebody who has adapted to the life of grief, pity and self-sorrow.  If life was good and was meant to be fun and happy with rainbows in every corner then why was it taking so long?  Why couldn’t everyone be at peace with the world instead of having to conquer it? 

Jenny stopped rocking and lay back onto the bed she would have to get used to being on her death bed.  She would have to get used to the boredom and she would certainly have to stop fighting it.  Jenny was draining, every bit of hope she originally bloomed with was dying like petals wilting on a plant.  What point was there in fighting a disease that would fight back and win in every battle until the war was over and Jenny had lost wasting so much effort when she knew she could never win something so strong?  There was nothing anybody could do the sooner she died the better, she would be in peace and never have to fight anything again, never have to put effort into breathing, never have to waste days staring into space waiting for the inevitable to occur.

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Jenny was so afraid of both living and dying but that didn’t stop her as days went by and she sank deeper and deeper into a state of depression.  It silently started to damage and wound her emotionally.  Rebecca did not notice the fact that her daughter was sinking into the depths of her own mind.  Jenny was now not only fighting cancer day on day but herself.  The will to live slowly started to diminish and the light that Jenny had been keeping lit was dimming and soon it would be gone.  It followed Jenny everywhere she went like a mysterious shadow, darkened by the terrors of the mind and curling up getting worse and graver every day.  Jenny could not escape what she had started, the constant voices in her head told her she deserved to die; that it is what she was made to do.  Her brain told her no one deserves to die, not ever but that is what the brain is designed to do, prevent the body from hurting itself.  Jenny’s brain was trying to argue with the wounded conscience that told her everything she could not afford to hear.

“Jenny what do you want to eat honey?  I can make ommelettes, pancakes, waffles, toasties; whatever.” Rebecca came in one morning and said this in the brightest spirits to try and keep her daughter lively and hopeful.

“I’m not hungry yet mum.” Jenny lied.

“No it wasn’t a choice, the doctors say you have to eat.”

“It’s not their illness” Jenny got annoyed by this, they can’t tell her what to do and not do, they weren’t living with cancer.  She was.  It was her decision.

“Well then I’m telling you to eat as your mother.”

“I’m not hungry, I’m fine look.”

“Ok then” with that Rebecca had gone, hurried off downstairs to busy herself with some chore the house had caused.

Jenny rolled over onto her front and placed her face on the pillow and cried.  She cried a lot lately, mainly in fear of what was to happen; seeing her mum trying to be hopeful and cheery.  What would she turn into when Jenny was dead?  Couldn’t Jenny just give her mum one bit of satisfaction and eat something.  No, her conscience told her.  She just wanted her torment to end, her mum was alive and that was the greatest gift of all.

It wasn’t just the depression that devoured Jenny, it was the forever of loneliness.  Jenny loved having people to talk to and at the moment she had been so isolated from society for months she hadn’t even realized how she felt.  The first person Jenny had talked to in two months who hadn’t been a doctor or family had been the kind man in the hospital who was so wise with his words and so pitying and helpful.  He obviously had been scarred and just felt bad when he saw children with other cancer.  It was as clear as day to Jenny why else would his eyes be so feeling and his face so scared, it was almost as if he felt every injection like his memories were coming alive.

Jenny got up and stretched, her skin was getting paler every day and thinner.  Jenny could not bear to look in the mirror; it just made her feel sick.  In her pajamas Jenny walked downstairs slowly, she then walked through to the kitchen and sat at the small table opposite her mother who was reading a magazine.

“Hungry?” Rebecca asked, raising her eyebrows a little bit whilst she was saying it.

“I don’t know”

“What do you mean you don’t know, why else would you come to the kitchen?” Rebecca said friendly.  “Look you aren’t going to get any better if you don’t eat.”

“Maybe I don’t want to get better!” Jenny had not meant to say that she just had a spurge of anger and the words had blurted out of her mouth like mini spitfires, it was so quick that she only realized she had said it after a while.

After a moment of awkward silence and hesitation Rebecca quietly said “You aren’t going to die Jenny”

“No but don’t you see?  That isn’t your choice it’s mine” Jenny said getting more tense and louder “you aren’t living with cancer you don’t know what its like sitting and waiting like a pig ready to be butchered.  I am the one with cancer and I am tired of fighting it.”