Too Soon To Say Goodbye

Young Writers Contest

Too Soon To Say Goodbye

It was an upbeat day in January, with the snow falling and the feeling of a start of a new year. A new year that was supposed to be fresh, new, and welcoming, but what we were forced to welcome, was not what we had expected.
We received a phone call that would change so much in our lives and in our minds. My cousin John called to say that his daughter, Kayleigh, who was only 2 at the time, was diagnosed with Acute Myelogenous Leukemia M4 (AML). She was so young, and no one had ever seen it coming.
Her family had moved to North Carolina, after living in Florida for all of the three children’s lives. The first time the little girl had ever seen snow, was the worst day of the family’s life. Everything was about to change for them, and no one saw it coming.
Kayleigh was the first girl born in my cousin’s generation for so many years, and therefore she was precious to everyone, and held a close meaning to the family. She was known as the “princess” and the “angel girl”, but no one had ever realized how true these names really were.
Once we heard the news, my mom, stepfather, and I drove to North Carolina to see her. We had traveled there on more occasions during the time she was sick. To see this little girl, barely living her life, lying in a hospital bed, hooked up to so many machines that she could barely even talk, was undeniably the hardest thing I will ever have to see. She was so young, and shouldn’t have had to go through what she did. It was hard to see her go through this, to sit in the room with her and to pretend that everything was okay, and would return to normal soon, and to talk to her as if there were nothing wrong, although we all knew different. We tried to convince ourselves of these things, but deep inside our minds and hearts somehow feared the worst.
We walked into the hospital, not knowing what to expect. They told us to put a yellow gown over our clothes and completely wash our hands before we could see her. We walked into the room and saw Sandi, her mother, sitting next to the bed holding Kayleigh’s hand, along with her father, John, just walking throughout the room more distraught then we have ever seen him. We looked at Kayleigh, and tears filled our eyes, she did nothing to deserve this. Sandi told her that we were here, and she smiled. Before we left, she gave me a single wave good-bye. This wave has affected me in so many ways, it meant so much more than a wave.
The day we received the phone call that she had lost her battle with her sickness, we were all speechless. We wanted so badly for her to get well again, but we had also wanted to keep her from feeling all of this, and didn’t want to have to see her like this anymore. She had lost her battle with this after the strong and held-out fight for four months and three days. She was only 3, and no parent should ever have to see their child go before they do, especially at 3. She spent so many holidays, and even her birthday dealing with this struggle. She was strong, and everyone knew it from the start. She was also special, way before this ever happened, and this sad event made her even more special in our hearts; we loved her.
A couple months after Kayleigh had passed, John and Sandi came to New York to visit us, and I took Sandi and the other two children to my mom’s job in the city. There was a man who was agitated at the front desk, and I suppose the person behind the first desk had helped us before the man, and that must’ve caused him to say this to us: “You children have all the time in the world, don’t you?” Sandi replied: “actually they don’t.” The man never exactly knew what she meant by it, but we did, and no one ever realizes how right she is, until they experience it first hand.
This horrible event helped me to not take every day for granted, to make the most of each day I live, and to love someone a lot, because you never know when they will be gone from you, or when you are gone. Even if you least expect it, things can go wrong, for no explained reason, either. Kayleigh taught me a lot, maybe not educationally, but emotionally. That last wave to me is the one thing that sticks in my head so much, and it keeps reoccurring in my mind, her last good-bye to me. I didn’t see her since then, and I couldn’t see going to her funeral either, I didn’t think I could see that, so that wave was her last good-bye to me, and no good-bye I have ever had was as sad as this.