Stories About Facing Challenges, Realizing Dreams and Making a Difference

  December 11 came. My birthday. We brought a cake to his room and he tried to sing happy birthday for me, then he called me over to his bed and kissed my forehead. I tried to believe that everything would be all right. That everything would go back to normal.

  Two days later, I spent the night with my dad. I sat by his bed and watched him sleep, and he looked so peaceful. It was really hard for me to see him the way he was though, with IVs in his hands, and tubes all over. I cried myself to sleep every night after that.

  On the night of December 20, I spent the night at my mum’s friend’s house. I lay awake that night, thinking about the next morning and, for some reason, fearing it. Maybe I knew or maybe I had a sense that something was going to happen. The next morning, she took me to the hospital and my mum was there. I sat down on a chair in the lounge, and I overheard my mother talking to her friend.

  “The nurses say that today is the day.” I felt exactly like I had eight months ago, a surge of hot and cold filling my body. My grandparents were at the hospital too; my tiny grandmother was shaking, and my grandfather was talking to a nurse. I didn’t cry, though. There were other patients in the room, and I didn’t want to upset them.

  I went to see my dad. He looked so sick, so thin, but I held back my tears. I didn’t want him to see me crying. I walked over to his bed and I bent down and hugged him. He whispered into my ear, “I love you,” and kissed my forehead. I hugged my dad, kissed his cheek and whispered, “I love you, too, Daddy.”

  I stayed with him in that room until the nurses told me that I should get something to eat. My two sisters, my brother and my sister’s boyfriend were waiting for me, so that we could all go out to lunch together. We went across the road, and we were halfway through our lunch when my sister’s cell phone rang. I dreaded this phone call. My sister, in tears, mumbled something to the caller and hung up. “It’s time.”

  We quickly paid the check and ran across the street. There were cars coming, but we didn’t care. We wanted to see our father. When we got there, my grandma was standing in the hall crying. She told us that he was gone. It was too late. My sister collapsed on the floor and couldn’t get back up. I ran into my dad’s room and saw his lifeless body, just lying there, motionless. My mum was beside him, holding his hand and crying. I didn’t know what to do; I was so confused. I just started crying and ran up to him. I hugged him and said, “Daddy, come back, come back,” but he didn’t.

  We had a service for him on December 27. My mum had put an announcement in the paper about his death, giving details about the service. There were so many people there. Most of them didn’t talk; they just sat there and cried. My godfather and my aunt both gave speeches, and both burst into tears when they finished.

  To this day, almost six months after my father’s death, I think about all those people crying for one man, for my father. I think a lot about different things. I think about how he isn’t suffering anymore and how he is up in heaven with his grandparents smiling down at me. I think about how he won’t be there for my graduation, and how he won’t be able to walk me down the aisle at my wedding, but I also think about how he’ll always be here for me—not in body, but in spirit—and how he’ll forever be in my heart.

  If I could say one thing to him right now, and he would be able to hear it, it would be this . . . Daddy, don’t forget to wait for me.

  Heather McPherson, twelve

  Dedicated to My Best Friend, Kenneth

  Vanished . . . not forgotten.

  Knowing that we can never again share, giggle, play.

  The loss of all my dreams, future hopes and expectations makes me angry.

  I’m also frightened because now I know that dying is not only for the very old. I’ve just realized that life is precious, and the only gift I can give my friend is to remember what we shared.

  Lois Greene Stone

  I was nine years old when my daddy ran out on us. I felt lonely and all alone, like I didn’t have anyone, until one day in May.

  My mom got a phone call from an old boyfriend of hers. His name was Kenneth Ray and he lived in Kentucky. My mom and Kenneth talked on the phone to each other a lot over the next few months, and then Kenneth decided to come to Michigan for a visit.

  He looked like a giant the first time I saw him. He stood six feet, four inches tall and weighed about 350 pounds. At first, I didn’t think that I would like him, but he turned out to be a very nice person. My mom said he was a big teddy bear. During his first visit, we spent a lot of time together, and I got to know him really well.

  After that, we grew closer and closer. Kenneth would come to visit on holidays and for weeklong visits whenever he could. When he was at his house, he would call me every night to ask me about my day at school, tell me he missed me and that he would see me again real soon. He never failed to tell me good night and that he loved me, then remind me to say my prayers.

  Kenneth and I became the best of friends. We talked about everything: my brothers, my sister, my nephews and my niece. Kenneth loved my whole family, but he loved me the most. He used to say that I was his boy and nobody could ever take me away from him.

  One day in January, Kenneth came up for a visit and he brought my mom a surprise—a Chinese pug dog. Kenneth stayed with us for three days, and we played with the dog, wrestled, laughed and just had fun being together. Then came Friday morning, and Kenneth had to go. I got up early to see him off. He hugged me, and told me he loved me and I told him I loved him, too. As he pulled away, he leaned out of the car window and promised me he would call me as soon as he got home that night.

  Kenneth lived about 500 miles from us, and it usually took him about eight hours to get home. This time, on the way, he stopped at a rest area somewhere in Ohio to stretch his legs. He went into the men’s room and while he was in there, Kenneth had a heart attack. Someone found him about 30 minutes after it happened, but it was too late for Kenneth. He was gone.

  My mom got a call about nine o’clock that night from someone letting her know that Kenneth had passed away. My mom just lost it. She kept crying and saying, “Please God, don’t let him be gone! God—tell me this is a bad dream!”

  But it wasn’t just a bad dream. My best friend was gone, and I was all alone again. My mom kept telling me that God needed another angel, so he picked Kenneth to come to heaven to be with him. Nothing made me feel any better. I cried for days.

  It’s been very hard to get through this. My mom has helped a lot, and people at my school have helped, too. Mom says Kenneth can’t come back to us, but some day we can go to see him.

  Kenneth was like a best friend and a dad—he was everything to me. I’ll always miss him. Until he came along, I had no man to look up to and want to be like; Kenneth played that part and made a big difference in my life. He’ll live in my heart forever because he was my best friend in the whole world.

  I love you, Kenneth.

  Nicholas Hall, ten

  Kristina

  It was a dreary day, and my dad was driving me home to my mom’s. I spent the weekends with my dad since my parents’ divorce. I had grown accustomed to the fact that I would visit him separately, maybe because they divorced when I was so young.

  Suddenly, my dad turned to me and said, “Ashley, your cousin Kristina has been diagnosed with cancer.” The words threw daggers at my heart.

  “What?” I gasped. I knew what cancer could do to a person because I remembered what had happened to my Granny. She died from it.

  Shortly after my dad told me about Kristina, she started going to the hospital often. Sometimes when I went to visit her, I would have to wear a mask so that I wouldn’t bring in any of my germs. Although she seemed uncomfortably pale and had tubes in her skin, everyone thought she would be fine, and it would soon be over. But “a few months” turned into two long years. During that time, her strength was an inspiration to me. When we played together, we would laugh and giggle, because we were both pretty young; she was only ten years old and I was on
ly eight.

  During the summer, it seemed that a miracle happened. For a few months, the cancer was still. Kristina was home, and it seemed that she was better, although she had a tube coming out of her chest that the doctors had used for her chemotherapy. Because of that, she wasn’t allowed to go swimming, but she still wanted to go to the beach with me and our little cousins. She had to wear a hat at the beach because she was bald. Her beautiful, wavy brown hair had been lost. She would play with my long blonde hair and whisper, “You’re so lucky to have hair like this.” I didn’t understand. Inside I felt lonely and confused, but Kristina seemed to be okay with what was going on, and she was really happy to be home with her family.

  Kristina seemed to get better and she went back to school. She was through with her treatments, and her hair started to grow back. Then, early the next spring, she went back to the hospital for a checkup, and they found out that Kristina’s cancer had spread. We were all slowly losing hope, though we continued to pray. I didn’t get to visit her for a while, but then when I finally saw her again, the look of joy and laughter was gone from her eyes.

  That whole summer, Kristina was in a wheelchair, and by August, she had grown thinner and thinner. I wasn’t allowed to see her anymore because she was very tired all the time, and it was hard for her to breathe. Our whole family knew that she was dying. And she did, just like that. Even though we sort of expected it, it still hit everyone hard. Especially me. When I was told, I sat quietly collecting the pieces of shattered memories in my soul.

  At the funeral, our family sat in the back. The room was so crowded with people who loved her. I just looked straight ahead. I wanted to mourn, but I couldn’t. I would never accept her death, and I didn’t know why.

  Then Dad explained to me about the “Rainbow of Hope.” It seems that when Kristina left us, her mom, my Aunt Kathy, had asked for one thing. She asked God for a sign that Kristina was safe with him. The very next evening a huge rainbow appeared in the sky, and my Aunt Kathy knew that she had her answer.

  After the funeral, we tossed Kristina’s ashes into the sea, near where we had scattered Granny’s ashes. On the way home, a glittering star of all colors was shining in the sky. It was Kristina smiling down on us from heaven with peace, tenderness and love.

  In Kristina’s honor, Aunt Kathy and Uncle John joined an organization to help raise money for children with cancer and blood diseases. That year, my dad’s whole family, and many friends, walked for Kristina in a fundraiser for the organization. We all walked proudly. Our group was called “Kristina’s Krew.” Every September we walk for Kristina—rain or shine.

  The next year, Aunt Kathy designed a ribbon to bring awareness to people about childhood cancer. It has the rainbow on it that Kristina sent to us. Aunt Kathy went to our state government with her “Rainbow of Hope” pin, and New Jersey made it the official symbol for childhood cancer awareness in our state. The next year, Aunt Kathy started her own Web site called “Kristina’s Rainbow of Hope.”

  I am at ease now with Kristina’s death and have come to realize that everything happens for a reason. Because of Kristina, a lot of people will know more about the effects of childhood cancer and how they can help children in treatment. I know that would make Kristina happy.

  Ashley Kopf, eleven

  [EDITORS’ NOTE: Shortly after Kristina passed away, her mother, Kathy, noticed Kristina’s Chicken Soup for the Kid’s Soul book in her room. She sat down to look at the stories Kristina had been reading, and found that the book was opened to the story “Rebecca’s Rainbow,” a story about a young girl who, after her death, sends a rainbow to her mother. Kathy tells us that rainbows continue to touch her life in the most unexpected ways. For more information, visit Kathy’s Web site at www.kristinasrainbowsofhope.org.]

  She Is Now My Sun

  In the final analysis, the question of why bad things happen to good people transmutes itself into some very different questions, no longer asking why something happened, but asking how we will respond, what we intend to do now that it happened.

  Rabbi Harold S. Kushner

  To me, life is a gift no matter what shape or form.

  One Thursday in April, I was awakened by the noise of my parents talking and making breakfast upstairs. My older brother and sister were upstairs running around trying to put their things together for school. I put on the new skirt I’d bought over the weekend while thinking about how I was going to make my day perfect. I ate breakfast with my family. Then my mom offered to walk me to school instead of my dad driving me. She said she wanted to walk for exercise, so I thought it would be fine. My dad said that he wanted to take me—that he had a weird feeling. But my mom and I both agreed to walk.

  As we were walking down the hill to my school, we were talking about how the body is like a chocolate-making machine—when you put the wrong ingredients in, like alcohol or drugs, the chocolate will come out wrong. Weird, how you remember certain stuff, like I did that conversation.

  Holding hands, we crossed the crosswalk to get to my school, and that’s when it happened.

  A car came really fast, and my mom tried to push me out of the way, but I had already run to the sidewalk. When I turned around, I saw my mom flying through the air, her hands crossed and her eyes shut. For me, everything was in slow motion. Mom landed on her head, and it started to bleed. I screamed uncontrollably while some people called my dad and the police. Soon, I saw my dad come rushing down the street in his car with the most scared look on his face. He and I followed the ambulance to the hospital.

  While we waited in the waiting room, I remember feeling like this can’t be happening to me. I also felt that my mom’s pain was happening because of me. If she hadn’t walked me to school that day, none of this would have happened. When the nurse finally came to get us, I was scared of what I was going to see, but I ran and hugged my mother. I started to feel dizzy, so the nurse told me to sit down.

  Later that day, we went to pick up my sister and then my brother. When we told my sister the horrible news, she started to scream and cry. When we told my brother, he just stayed silent. We all went to visit my mom at the hospital that night, and the next day at school, everyone made her cards.

  A few days later, Mom was much better, it seemed. They let her come home, and when I got home from school, I saw my mom up and about trying to clean the house. I was so shocked! I dropped all my stuff and ran to give her a huge hug. (Oh, how I wish I could do that now!)

  A few months passed, and she became healthy again. My family and I cherished her much more then we had before. That summer we went to Disneyland. She was so excited that she would walk ahead of us like she was a little girl again. I loved those times.

  Then on a dark day in October, she came down with this mysterious illness. She had a fever and pains in her face. Then she would need blankets because she was cold. Thinking that the pain in her face was because of her teeth, she had a root canal done. A few months later, her vision started to get blurry, and she couldn’t taste her food very well. I got scared from not knowing what was happening to my mom. I just knew I wanted her back the way she had been before, when she was healthy

  Soon, my mom started to lose her balance when she walked, but she still tried so hard to walk across the hall to kiss my sister and me good night. Then, finally, she couldn’t even swallow or balance her head on her neck. She would stay in her bed all day in so much pain. I know she was scared. She tried so hard not to let us know, so we wouldn’t get depressed!

  Then in late March, I had a sleepover for my birthday with a few friends. The next morning, my mom left my house early in an ambulance to go to the hospital. I didn’t realize that that was going to be her last day in our home. I wish I’d known that, so I could have spent more time with her. But I’d go visit her in the hospital about every day. When I would leave I’d say, “I love you, Mom. When you get home, I promise we’ll go to Hawaii together.”

  The doctors took all these tests, biopsies and sc
ans, but they couldn’t find anything wrong with her. She had so many surgeries and biopsies and X rays, but they still couldn’t find anything. Soon she lost her ability to speak, but before she did, she told us that she felt that her mysterious illness was a result of the head injury that she had from being hit by the car. We were so frustrated because we could get no medical proof of what was making her sick so that they could treat her.

  Then one day, Mom just stopped breathing, and they decided to put a tube in her throat so a machine could help her breathe. A few months went by with her in constant pain because of the irritating tube in her throat.

  Every night I would go to sleep thinking of how lonely she was in her hospital room, and I’d be scared of what tomorrow would bring. Sometimes, when I was visiting her, I would just stare into her eyes, and I’d get this amazing feeling of comfort. I’d feel like no one could hurt her or me.

  Whenever we’d leave the hospital room, I’d get to see that half smile that took up all her energy, and I’d hold on to it like never before. In those eight months of her being in that hospital bed, all I thought about was her: at school, at home, at night, at the hospital. All I wanted was my mom back. Nothing in the world could heal my heart— she was the only one who could. She was the biggest thing that was in my life and I wanted to help her so badly!

  She was my best friend.

  She was my hero.

  She was my one and only mom.

  When I was a little girl, I remember hearing about my friend losing her mom, and I thought to myself, Nothing like that could ever happen to me. Now I look at the world so much differently!

  After many visits filled with tears and sadness, the day came that the doctors began losing hope. Finally, my dad had to make the biggest decision of our lives. The doctors wanted to take out the tube to see if Mom could breathe without the machine’s help. My dad thought of what she would have wanted and made the difficult decision to let nature take its course. So, he told the doctors to take it out. We all had hope in our hearts that she would learn how to breathe on her own and come back home.