My name is Landry Keith Payne-Reuben. I am fifteen years old. My favorite colors are blue and green. I was born in Dublin, Ireland, but we never had a home. My birth parents liked to travel a lot. Then I was adopted. I have a younger sister and an older brother. My sister and I both have blonde curly hair and light green eyes. We completely stand out from our adoptive family. Our parents and brother all have really dark hair and eyes. Plus, I have to wear glasses.
Our parents are named Lexington and Kenneth. But people just call Mom Lexi, and Dad is Ken.
My brother, Branan, is only a year older than me, but because he is the "birth child," he acts like I am just someone who lives with him. When we first moved into our new lives, Branan and I were best friends, completely inseparable. But then I got sick, and he shut me out. He acts the same to Jaeger as he always has: like the annoying little sister. He doesn't talk to me anymore, and I don't know why.
We were adopted three years after both of our parents we killed in a eight car pileup, in Chicago. Jaeger was just a baby, and I was six when we were put in the foster system. The principal of my school had to come into my first grade class and pulled me into the hallway. He said, "Landry, I am so sorry. We just got a call from the hospital, your parents were in a big car crash. Your Dad died instantly, but your Mom made it to the hospital, right before she died, she told the doctors about you and your sister. I'm gonna need you to get your things, there is someone here that needs to talk to you." I wasn't sure what to do. I thought he was joking me, but then I went up to the office. And I met Ms. Emily Tolan, our caseworker. Jaeger was at a day care in Chicago, our parents were on their way yo pick her up, then come and get me. Instead Ms. Tolan picked me up from school early, then she drove us to Chicago to get Jae. Then she brought us to our rental house. She had someone box everything up when I was at school. Everything my parents owned, which wasn't much, was put into a storage unit. All of the baby stuff and my stuff was put in a van, and shipped to our new foster home. When we were moved to a new home, our parents things were put in a storage unit near our house, and I kept the key for every box. Now that I have been adopted, my parents boxes are in my house. I had to get rid of somethings. Like the moth and mouse eaten clothing, and little trinkets that meant nothing to me. But I will never be able to get rid of all mom's pictures. She took pictures of nearly everything.
That's one reason why we never lived in a stable place. Mom was a photographer, and she was famous for it. Dad drilled for oil and natural gas. But he worked for one of the worst companies. We never lived in a successful area.
I have never been back to Springfield. Besides our newly deceased parents, we had no family. So, we were put in several homes, but we didn't stay very long. After three years, as previously mentioned, we were moved to Ada, Oklahoma to be fostered by the Reuben family. I'm not very good at making friends, considering I have never lived in a place long enough to learn how to make them. I can't even list the homes I have lived in and the schools I have attended. Or the amount of surgeries I have gone through. When is want to know, I just count my box keys, each one has an address on it, the places I lived, or I trace the scars that cover my body.
It has been almost seven years since the Reuben's took us in. I will be turning sixteen in three weeks. Jaeger is almost eleven.
There is one thing that I should probably tell you. At the age of nine I got sick, I couldn't breathe, and I kept coughing up blood. I was rushed to the hospital after three days of enduring the terrible pain. Its heartbreaking to tell a nine year old boy that he has stage two lung cancer. It's even worse when you are that nine year old boy. After several chemo treatments, my beautiful golden curls all fell out. My mom tells me that my vibrant green eyes lost all their sparkle. She said that she lost nearly everything that I was made of.
Slowly, the chemo stopped working, and I escalated into stage three. There were several times when I was hospitalized for weeks, and nearly died. But after a while, the chemo started working again, and I started to gain some weight, and my hair started to grow back, but it wasn't as golden, and I "came back to life." It has been two years since I have gone into remission. When I was younger, my doctors told me that my cancer will probably spread to my throat, causing me to be mute, or nearly that. The doctors also told me that I wouldn't make it past sixteen. Well, if they are right, then I have a year to live my life to it's fullest.
As I said earlier, I don't make friends easy. But, that has kinda changed since I got adopted, and stopped moving every few months. I go to a great school, I have great friends, and I am in the choir.
I moved to a new school after I went into remission, because I didn't want people to feel sorry for me. I didn't want people to know that I had cancer.
I still have to go to the hospital every few weeks, just to make sure that the cancer stays gone.
But, I'm fine now, the cancer is gone. So there is nothing to worry about. At least, that's what I thought.
