Stage 4 Clare, by Julia Weinstock

Stage 4 Clare, by Julia Weinstock

I remember the day I found out Clare was dying, and there were no other options, no turning back, just waiting. I can recall all too well opening my eyes and instantly wondering if she was still breathing. We were all stuck in a place of limbo. The ending was inevitable, and we were aware of that, but we just couldn't pinpoint an exact day or time. I can still feel the burn in my stomach when I remember reading the deteriorating updates on her health, I think we all can. That isn’t very uncommon though, remembering the smallest of details down to a tee when something unusual happens. Life doesn’t change significantly day to day, so our senses are heightened when we are placed in an unordinary situation. Thats why we have all those documentaries where people recall where they were when two planes flew into the twin towers, or when President Kennedy was shot. And you can carefully observe their face and see every tiny muscle revert back to how it was when they were placed in that foreign situation.They remember it so well, because it was so out of the blue, and it feels like they are reliving it, even though it was years ago. But she wasn’t a decade ago, she was just a small 365 days in comparison.

We were staring mindlessly at the figures that appeared in the hollow box before our eyes. Something people do everyday for hours on end. We were sitting, just sitting, on an old couch. I hate myself for living that moment in such an everyday way. We could have been doing something productive and extraordinary with our time. We allowed the silence to be interrupted only be the background noise of reality tv, not our own voices. The stillness was broken by a friend’s phone, alerting her that someone was attempting to reach her. She excused herself to walk outside. We knew our two classmates were making the pilgrimage to St. Judes to visit Clare, and we knew they were going to call us, but we were blind to any possible outcome that was not positive. We should have known that after Nora was on the call for more than a minute, something was wrong, but we didn’t pause to consider the perilous thought that was somewhere in all of ours minds. A kid can’t die, or at least not a kid you know. That’s what everyone thinks, right? That “horrible things happen, but they never happen to me.” When she reentered the house, I heard what I thought was laughter but quickly realized was crying. As we all frantically asked what was wrong, trying to refuse the likelihood of what was about to be said next she choked out the words: “She has six months or less. There are so many tumors.”

It was like an electric shock, swift and numb at first, then a quiet lingering pain. We sat in a paralyzed silence as we watched the last portions of our childhoods swiftly crumple to ash. The world became bleaker before our eyes. The sky turned from a blazing blue, to a frigid dim grey. I began to think this is what happens when you grow up, you see the difficult reality instead of a fantasy. I began to look around the room and see that the colors weren’t so vibrant. I thought about daily interactions, and they didn’t present their usual appeal. I started coming to the realization that when you're younger you can’t tolerate the truth, so it is concealed behind a wall of lively stimulating diversions, and tales of wonder. I  was lost in my thoughts and started to remember the day the towers fell, and it felt clearer. Like a roadblock in my mind of how everything happened that fatal day, had fallen and I could connect the pieces. Before that life changing call, 9/11 was a day that my mom whispered with my preschool teachers, and katie came home from school early. It was day that Katie and I watched two big towers fall, and when we asked why our mother she clicked it off she told us it was a movie trailer. It was a day that “daddy was coming  home from his business trip early, and wasn’t that exciting?” It was a day that mommy came home with two industrialized sized barrels of peanut butter. But after that call, 9/11 was a day that everyone was sent into a frenzy, and the country was under attack. After that fatal call the peanut butter was in case of chemical warfare, not for eating or making cookies. After that news my dad came home early from his trip because he was going to be shot down if he didn't land immediately, not because he wanted to see his baby girls.

I was brought back into reality with a jolt by my friend’s mother entering the room to bring us tissues, and attempt comfort. I kept both hands on the shoulders of my friends, as I sat with my eyes plastered to the ground. I blurred my vision and saw nothing except my thoughts, accompanied by the noise of heavy tears. Quickly the crying had turned into the kind of wailing that only happens when incomprehensible grief strikes. They both were shaking violently, but with no noise escaping their mouths their complexion turned a feverish red. We tried desperately to comfort each other, but we were all foreign to this kind of tragedy. How do you comfort someone when they know this was the end of the road? How do you tell someone that a 14-year-old whose birthday was this month, and who was never going to her first kiss, get her license, graduate, get married, and achieve her numerous dreams will be in a better place? We came to the unspoken decision that it would benefit us more to sit silence. It was more comforting than the lies we all tell when we don't know what to say. I watched the clock closely, waiting until I could be isolated. It felt imperative that I avoid human contact immediately. I needed to wrap my mind around this situation, and comprehend it, before I could discuss it with anyone else. But there were other plans. I was in a funk and couldn't put together why my friend was texting my mom and why we had to drive around my block two times. I walked into my house and headed for the stairs, but fifteen of the last people I wanted to see jumped out and I was halted.

A surprise party. The surprise party I had desired for years was happening, but at the wrong time. But what was I supposed to do? I couldn’t keep looking like I had no faith in the world and hide from everyone. I had to jolt the minuscule amount of energy I had left, and spread it out over the course of three hours. I attempted to push out an “oh wow” that didn’t sound like I had been socked in the stomach, and gave everyone an artificial giggle. I was seized by classmates and friends asking if I was “so totally surprised?” I widened my eyes, shook my head and replied “oh ya.” My mother wrangled us all outside so I could see what she had done. Lights dangled from the trees and a large movie screen was set up, with blankets surrounding it. Once we were moved outside I began to feel an overwhelming sense of guilt. Not only did Clare enter my mind, but her mother, father, siblings and family. She was two hundred and eighty four miles away in a hospital room being read her last rites, while I ate cake and was handed gifts. My mother was throwing me a surprise party, while hers was grasping her hand whispering how much she loved her, trying to hold back the tears and be strong. I tried to shake this but sat comatose staring into oblivion until the movie ended. As everyone left and gave me warm hugs, only to receive cold ones from my limp body, my mother said “I tried to invite Clare, but I couldn’t get a hold of her family, and you friends said she probably wouldn't make it.” All I heard was she probably wouldn't make it. The phrase mocked me and tortured my mind. I knew my mother was not referring to her illness, and her impossible chance of survival, but that sentence wouldn't wash off. She probably wouldn’t make it, and I had to accept that.

That is what may have been the most terrifying. I had been handed information that made me think it was the ending to everything, not just her life. But everything wasn't ending. I had no control over what was going to happen next, and while I figured it out I expected the world to stop turning and wait for me, and it refused. Things were going to keep rolling forward, and the world would not wait to continue its cycle for me to heal. I had to put on a happy face and thank everyone for coming. I had to give my family the news that a 14 year old was going to die. I had to keep going without her.