Knowing that I would never see her again, and having to say a final good-bye to Kelsey was the saddest thing that I’ve ever been through. We had been together through the toughest times our family had ever known and we had helped each other out. Now she was gone forever and I was on my own. I knew I had to learn how to help myself out, and to help Dakota, too. If it weren’t for my family and friends, I would never have made it through the experience of losing her.
I think my family and I might have a new start with our lives now. I know it will never be the same without Kelsey, but I think the tragedies in our lives have stopped. Mom is in remission and has gone back to teaching kids with special needs. I’m studying kick-boxing and karate and doing really well in school. As for Dakota, he’s following in my footsteps and taking karate, too. So far, so good.
One thing I learned from all this is to treat your family with love and kindness. Always give hugs and kisses to them because tomorrow is not promised to anyone. If you do this, then you won’t ever have to wonder if they knew that you loved them.
Shane Ruwe, fifteen
Losing Mom
When I was twelve, my parents separated, and I thought that was hard. Then I realized that something else is even harder: losing someone you love very much.
In my opinion “cancer” is the worst six-letter word in the whole dictionary. My mom was first diagnosed with mouth cancer. She spent Mother’s Day in the hospital that year recovering from major surgery. Then, four months later, she was diagnosed with lung cancer. I remember the day so vividly.
When I came home from school that day, my mom’s side of the family was there. They were all crying. My mom said, “Come and sit by me,” and she started crying, too. My heart began to pound really hard and my eyes filled with tears. I definitely knew something major was wrong. My mom was too upset to explain so my grandpa told me. My mom had cancer in both lungs, and she only had a short time to live. My mom and I just sat there and cried together.
My family had to watch my mom go through so much: chemotherapy, radiation, oxygen treatments and the loss of her beautiful hair. She suffered so much, and we couldn’t do anything about it. She couldn’t talk without coughing or losing her breath. She was weak, and she was just slowly dying.
We knew it would happen someday, but not as soon as it did. Everything was over in eight months. I came home from school one day, and my mom wasn’t there. She was always my first concern when I walked through the door. She had been taken to the hospital in an ambulance. We went up to see her that night. I didn’t get my homework done, but I didn’t care.
The next day, my brother Robert and I were called out of school because my mom wasn’t doing well. I went to my locker and started crying. Two of my friends came out and tried to comfort me. When we got to the hospital, my brother Chris met us at the elevator and told us the grim news. I tried not to cry in front of Mom because it would upset her, and then she wouldn’t be able to breathe. I took a deep breath and went in to see her. It was so hard to see her lying there so helpless. I held her hand, and we tried to talk but it was hard for her. I can’t even count how many times I told her that I loved her.
When I left her that night, I had the feeling that it was going to be the last time I saw her alive. When I got home, I called her and we talked some more. I remember the conversation word for word. I told her that she sounded better and that I loved her. That conversation was so special.
The next day, Robert and I were called out of school again. I wanted to cry so badly, but I held back my tears. Chris and my dad were in the car waiting for us. I was so scared to face what was in store for us. When we stepped off the elevator at the hospital, I took a deep breath. I just had a feeling that what I was about to hear wasn’t going to be good. My sister came out of my mom’s room and she was crying. As I got closer, I could see that everyone else was crying, too. I started to shake. My sister came up to me and said, “She’s gone. She died.” I tried to laugh because I didn’t want it to be true. The pain I felt was like no other. My sister asked if I wanted to go in and see her, and I said yes. When it was time for everyone to leave, we went over and gave Mom a last hug. When she didn’t hug me back, I knew it wasn’t a dream.
Some days I really need my mom. When she died, a part of me died, too. However, I knew that I would have to become an adult very quickly. Sometimes I ask myself, Why her? She did not deserve any of the pain that she went through. She fought hard for her children. We meant the world to her, and I know she didn’t want to leave us.
I always thought my mom would be here for special things like homecoming, prom, graduation and my wedding day. It’s hard knowing she’s not going to be. She’s never going to know her grandchildren or see Robert and I grow up. I would do anything to have her back. I miss and love her so much.
Very few people consider the true dangers of smoking. They think it is cool because everyone else is doing it. But it isn’t. It really isn’t.
I’m sure that at least one of you reading this thinks that life would be so much better without your parents. I have a little tip for you: Live life to its fullest and love your parents. It’s hard to go on without them.
Diana Carson, fifteen
[EDITORS’ NOTE: For support in dealing with the illness or loss of a loved one due to an illness, call Kids Konnected at 1-800-899-2866, or log on to www.kidskonnected.org.]
Celebrate the Good Days
Look to your health; and if you have it, praise God, and value it next to a good conscience; for health is the second blessing that we mortals are capable of; a blessing that money cannot buy.
Izaak Walton
Cancer. It sends chills up my spine as I say it. A six-letter word causes so much pain. I didn’t think it would happen to anyone that I knew, until it happened to my mom.
It was in April of what seemed to be a great year. I was in fourth grade with the greatest teacher, Miss DeRosear. It was the year everyone looked forward to because Miss D. was the coolest teacher.
I had just come home from school to find Mom at home. That was odd because she never arrived home before me. Mom was sitting on the couch with Dad. A thousand horrible things started flashing through my mind. What if Grandma had passed away? I did not have the chance to say goodbye. What if my brother was hurt?
As I crawled up on the couch next to Mom, she gave me a kiss and a huge smile, so I relaxed and went on with my normal after-school activities. During the TV show that I always watched after school, Mom started getting phone calls. The calls continued for the rest of the night. Each time the phone rang, Mom rushed to her room. I then knew that something bad had happened.
When Mom came back, I asked, “Mom, why do you keep on leaving the room every time you get a phone call?”
She turned to my sister and me and said, “Girls, I have something to tell you. I have a disease that will make me very sick. I have cancer.”
As she said that I felt a sharp pain in my heart. I was thinking, Why is God taking my mom from me so soon? What have I done? Little did I know that we were just beginning a very long, painful journey.
The next day on the bus I turned to my friend, Kate. “My mom . . .” That was all I could say before I started crying. Kate gave me a big hug and whispered, “I know, and I’m here for you.” I knew then that Kate would support me.
As other people found out about my mom’s cancer, they all had different ways of dealing with it. When my grandma found out about it, she had a difficult time, because to her, cancer was a death sentence. She had lost her husband, my grandfather, to cancer when my mom was only a senior in high school.
Then the time came for Mom to have chemotherapy. Her hair fell out, and she was always sick. I remember all those nights that she was too tired to eat, or she was sick from the chemotherapy.
During the summer, Mom stayed home. On the good days, Mom, Sis and I went down by the pond and made shapes out of clouds. On these days we talked about what we were going to do the next day, week,
month or year with Mom. We never talked about losing her.
Support came from many different people and places. When school started again, Mom had to have surgery. I stayed with one of my teachers, Mrs. Stephens. Mrs. Stephens made me rainbow French toast. It always made me feel better: it let me know that someone cared and made time to make something for me. I would feed it to the dog if I had too much or if I wanted the dog to feel good also. Mrs. Stephens was always there for me with a smile, a hug or “it will be okay” advice.
Sometimes I lost hope, wondering, Am I losing my mother just like she lost her father? I spent hours just ranting at God, telling him that he could not take her away! I needed her! He just could not take her away!
After a long six months of losing her hair and throwing up because of chemo, my mom took a turn for the better. She slowly started to recover.
On April 5, 1999, my mom became a five-year survivor. When that day came, we had a big party. Friends came from far and wide to celebrate how special Mom is and her victory against cancer!
If you know someone who has cancer, you can help by doing little things. You can stay with them for a while and just chat or do some chores.
Dealing with cancer is so hard. Don’t bottle up your feelings. Talk to someone. Chat rooms are available for kids dealing with cancer, and support groups help kids and teens deal with cancer, too. Do not give up!
There will be good days and bad days—some more bad than good. But as I have learned from my mother, celebrate the good days!
Leslie Beck, fourteen
Think Before You Act
It was a cold evening, the night before Halloween, when something happened in my town that no one will ever forget. During lunchtime at school, some girls who were my brother’s friends told him about a plan that they had to toilet paper a guy’s house. They had already been playing pranks on this guy, and they were laughing about what his house would look like when they were through with it. My brother told me later that he knew what they were planning on doing was wrong, but he didn’t say anything to the girls. Now, he wishes he would have.
That night my brother’s six friends stayed overnight at one of the girl’s houses. In the middle of the night, they sneaked out of the house. They piled into one of the girl’s small blue car and set off to play their little prank. When they got to the guy’s house, everything went as planned—until they got caught. The guy that they were playing the prank on came outside and saw them. Laughing, they all ran to the car and hopped in, hoping to get away. The guy got into his car and chased after them, trying to identify them. He was right on their tail, and it scared the girls really badly. They were not sure what he would do to them if he caught them, so they went faster.
Then, when they were turning on a blind curve in the road, they lost control of the car and hit a tree head-on. Three of the girls were ejected from the car and were killed instantly. The other three girls were seriously injured. One of the girls had just enough strength to get out of the car and go to a nearby house. The people who answered the door were afraid of her and didn’t even believe that there had been an accident. They said, “Yeah, right, you really got into a wreck,” and they would not call the police.
The three girls that died were all honor-roll students and were looking ahead to doing something great with their lives. But all of their dreams were shattered when they hit the tree on that cold night. Only one of my brother’s friends was wearing a seat belt, and she was one of the survivors. Now whenever I get into a car, I think about the accident and put on my seat belt.
The guy that chased them went to court. All he got was a ticket for running a stop sign and for speeding. I often wonder if he feels anything at all about the death of the girls in that car that he chased. My brother feels bad that he didn’t say anything to his friends that day when they told him what they were planning on doing. They still might have gone on their mission regardless of what he said, but he might have saved his friends’ lives. We’ll never know. So many people have suffered because of a stupid act that was never meant to go wrong.
The only good thing that came from this tragic event is that the mother of one of the deceased girls is setting up a teen center in town in memory of the girls that died. Now there will be a place for teens. Maybe that will keep some of them from getting into situations like this by providing a place to hang out and have fun, to talk to each other and hopefully give them a chance to help them think before they act.
Lauren Wheeler, twelve
Getting Better
I was a nine-year-old girl beginning a journey to a whole new place. My mother and I were saying good-bye to our family, and were on our way to Kent, Washington, where we were going to live. My sisters, brother and dad were staying in Billings because my parents were divorced. My parents divorced when I was around two, and my dad remarried when I was four years old.
My mother and I were moving to Seattle because she had been offered a job as a special ed teacher. The only reason that I went with my mother was because she had told me so many bad things about my father, and I was too scared to live with him. I didn’t even really want to leave because I wanted to stay with my sisters, but I didn’t know what to do about my dad.
Let me tell you, it was incredibly scary to be all of a sudden moving to a whole new place, where I didn’t know anybody. My mother and I moved into an apartment. Just after we arrived and we were unloading our things, a somewhat nice-looking guy came walking down the stairs. He introduced himself as John and offered to help us unload our belongings. He seemed quite nice, so we said yes and just kept on unloading. We finally finished unloading so we began to unpack our things.
Pretty soon, my mother and John began to date, and after about three months, John would come over to our apartment all the time. To me it began to feel like they were married. He would stay until really late, and he loved to tuck me into bed. I was not sure how to deal with all of this because something about him scared me really badly. My mother and John decided to get married. I didn’t get excited about it.
After the wedding, John started to come into my room more and more, and would stay for a long time. He began to touch me in very uncomfortable ways and I would get extremely scared. I didn’t say anything, because I was too scared. Sometimes I would put my hands over my chest and roll over so that my back was facing him. During this particular time, my mother would usually be in her room watching TV, and I did not want to scream. I knew that if I did he would immediately stop and pretend to be innocent, and my mother would think that I was crazy.
A few months after the wedding, my mother and John found a new house. I was given the opportunity to live with my dad again, and based on what was going on with John, I decided to move back to Billings.
My family in Billings was extremely excited to have me back, but when I got home it was hard for me to get close to them. I found myself having a hard time showing any physical affection toward my dad and stepmom. John had confused me as to what was normal and what was appropriate. Any physical contact made me pull away.
My sister and I would go see my mother during every vacation. Sometimes neither of us wanted to, but we were expected to. I used to cry and beg my parents not to make me go. Every time I was there, John would touch me and I would get more scared about what was happening and whether or not anyone would believe me if I told.
At one point, I told my best friend Lindsey what was happening and she told me to tell my parents. I didn’t think that they would believe me so I made her swear to keep quiet, and I didn’t take her advice.
My dad and stepmom began to wonder if there was something going on that I just wasn’t able to talk about. Then one day, my stepmom decided to have a school counselor come to the house to see if she could help me break through the awkward silence. Rather than tell a stranger what had been happening, I finally burst out and told my stepmom the truth.
At last, I had the courage to tell my family what John had been doing to me. My stepmom, Je
an, pulled me close to her and we cried for a long time together.
Soon after that, we contacted an attorney who got in touch with the police in Washington. John was arrested, but it took nine months before we actually went to court. It was really hard on me to face my mother during the trial, but I got through it. All that I have to say is that it was one of the hardest times of my life.
John was found guilty and went to jail, but immediately he hired a new lawyer to appeal the case. Just before he was to be sentenced, he was granted a new trial. He decided to accept a plea bargain and was freed from jail after only five months. As unbelievable as it sounds, he was able to return to his job with the government and is living with my mother. As I suspected, she didn’t believe me, even after a jury of twelve adults found John guilty. The family has not had any contact with her in nearly three years.
After the trial, I felt that the attorneys had taken such care with my case and treated me so wonderfully, I wanted to become a lawyer. I want to defend little kids, or anyone else, who is unfortunate enough to be in the same situation that I was.
I always have hope that one day my mom will see how much she has missed and get back in touch with us kids. There are days when it saddens me and I cry and get furious. I will always love my mother no matter what, and hopefully someday I will be able to accept the choices she has made and the person that she is.
I now live my life the best way that I possibly can. I know who I am inside, and that took a lot of counseling. I also don’t think that I would be who I am right now if it weren’t for my stepmom and dad and their intuition that something was terribly wrong in my life back then. I can’t imagine what my future would have held. Now, it’s better than it’s ever been, and getting better.