I remember sitting in class during my senior year of high
school scrolling through my phone, when I received a serious text. The text
read, “This is Kimly’s dad, she isn’t doing well. Come visit the hospital,
today if you can”. My heart dropped because I knew this wasn’t good. I
immediately went to the bathroom and called my mom.
- Kimly was one of my best friends
in middle school, along with a group of friends we always hung out with. I went
to a different high school then them. Kimly, Steven (from the friend group),
and I were really close so we tried to remain close during 9th grade
but eventually drifted apart. I had texted her and Steven in early October 2014
to check up on them since we hadn’t talked a long time. During that group text,
Kimly told us she had Leukemia. I was so shocked; I barely knew what to say…
what can you say to someone who knows they’re sick and dying? We asked her some
questions about the cancer, how she’d been, and promised her we’d come visit
her in the hospital. She told us to come in two weeks. Not even a week later,
her dad texted me saying to come visit, so that is how I knew it was bad.-
While in the bathroom, I finished talking to my mom, then I
texted Steven first, told him, and said that we had to tell our old friend
group. It seemed bad so I wanted us all to go together and see her. We planned
to go after school that day, we met up at my house and left. It was weird to
see and talk to all of my old friends almost four years later. That drive to
the hospital was the longest twenty minutes of my life.
Whenever I walk into a hospital, I immediately get a heart
wrenching feeling in my stomach, especially this one since it was the
Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. We made our way to the cancer wing, and
that alone was enough to experience in one day. We arrived in the waiting area
where some of Kimly’s current friends were waiting. One of Kimly’s best friend,
Mya, said more people were coming so they wanted us to wait for everyone to
arrive before we went in her room. She also said that Kimly was really out of
it and couldn’t talk to us, which made me nervous. Waiting felt like eternity.
I was bored, anxious, and scared and really just wanted to go in. Her nurse
kept checking up on us to see when all the friends were arriving. I had a
thousand thoughts going on in my head, like “What would she look like? Would
she hear us? What was everyone else thinking? Were they nervous too? I had
never met anyone with cancer, what do I expect? Can I just see her already?”
The nurse came out and said that her entire family was in the room right now so
we just had to wait until they’re done then we could go in. I became more anxious.
I remember looking out the waiting room window anticipating seeing her. I
actually got excited since I hadn’t seen her in person in years.
The nurse came out again, and I stood up, thinking, “This is
it” and mentally preparing myself to see her.
The nurse went over to Mya’s mom, which I thought was
strange; Mya’s mom started to look really upset. Her mom went over to my mom,
and I noticed my mom had a tear falling down her face. I knew what this meant,
so I started tearing up.
My mom came over to my friends and I and told us that Kimly
had passed away while her family was in the room. I couldn’t believe this. I
started crying so hard to the point I couldn’t breathe; I thought I was going
to have a panic attack. Everyone was in hysterics, as none of us had
anticipated her dying that day let alone before we got to see her. Kimly’s
nurses took us to a conference room to talk with us and let us grieve in
private. They told us we could go in the room if we wanted to see her, and as
hard as I knew it was going to be, I had to go in for closure.
Walking into that room was one of the scariest moments of my
life. I immediately saw Kimly’s mom and dad holding her hand, crying and screaming,
“Why did you leave us?” Seeing that only made us cry more. Kimly was so
unbelievably skinny and frail, she was bald, and looked nothing like the Kimly
I knew. Her long, sleek black hair that once hung to her lower back was gone.
We only stayed for a couple minutes before we left. I think I cried for the
rest of the day, I was so distraught.
I like to say that she passed away at peace that day,
knowing all of her friends had came to see her. I’m glad that it wasn’t us in
the room while she passed because that would’ve been devastating. Kimly knows
how much she was loved in that moment and decided it was her time to go.
October 8th, 2013 is a day that all of Kimly’s
friends and I who were at the hospital, will never forget. She is in a much better
place wherever she is.
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| Kimly and I during our 8th grade field trip. |
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| Obviously I just made this, but it's similar to what I saw the day I received the text. |
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| Entrance of the hospital. |
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| The waiting room that we waited hours in. |
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| This was the "Super Moon" that was still visible the next morning following Kimly's death, while I was driving to school. For some reason, I felt like it was her way of saying good bye. |
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| This was one of Kimly's favorite quotes from her favorite authors and it really resonated with me when she passed.
Thanks for reading my blog post.
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Never apologize for writing too much! More is better, because then you have more to draw from if you decide to use this experience for one of your future projects. I like too how you've incorporated relevant drawings--could they tell the story for you if you extracted them and only used one or two words to caption them? I really like that you included the text message--this interactive piece helps the viewer experience what happened.
ReplyDeleteYou do an excellent job of keeping this in scene, and also in starting from a moment of conflict. So, you've set the reader up well, and we want to know what happens next. After the call, you give us a little background info so we can understand the significance of Kimly in your life. That's also important to raise the stakes for the reader, and it would be a good place for you to list or describe some specific things about Kimly--make her real, vivid, specific so we can experience your loss.
Sentences like this one "That drive to the hospital was the longest twenty minutes of my life" doesn't quite illuminate the experience for the reader. What were you passing? What did you see out of the window? How can you make that experience--a long car ride--real for your audience?
It is really hard to write about the death of a friend, especially one who is so young. I appreciate you being willing to take this on. The next even harder step is to do it without being overly sentimental or melodramatic, because we expect those things and we are used to them. What you have to do is a reader is to make it real, and that happens just by giving us the details of the scene, rather than simply narrating "this happened, and then this..." You have to pick your moments where you will slow down and describe. Seeing Kimly in the room for the first time as a completely different person might be the moment you need to stop and look at more closely. You have to understand and see it again--which is why this particular experience is difficult to write about. Keep pushing yourself.
Reminder: please email when your post is live.
I'm sorry for your loss. I know it's a really hard thing to write about and not be cliche or anything but I think you did really well. I liked hearing about your experience and I was able to follow along with the story easily. Well done!
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