For Thalia (In honor of what she went through)

Note: I was given Thalia's consent before publishing this to YWP.

Last year

April of 2023

Our story begins

Thalia and I were talking in class

She told me she couldn’t call after school because of a doctor’s appointment

Lately she’d been feeling under the weather

Neither of us questioned

The possibilities

Of what might be wrong

The following day

My mom told me the news

Thalia was sent in an ambulance to the downtown hospital

The doctors didn’t even know what was wrong

All they knew was

Something had shown up on the CT scan

She was in the hospital for two weeks straight

I was bombarded at school with questions about her absence

I made “Get Well Soon Cards” and brought gifts

Hoping it would cheer her up

Last year

My best friend

Had an extremely rare tumor 

Only 2% of all tumors were of this type

The only way to remove it was surgery

At the end of those two weeks

She had the surgery

And was able to go home a few days later

She stayed home the rest of the school year

Everyone missed her presence

I visited her constantly

Hoping it would distract her

From the stitched-up cut on her stomach

Doctors' appointments became normal

But the story’s not over yet

One doctor’s visit

They found the tumor to be cancerous

Last year

My best friend

Had cancer

Her case was unheard of

Only 1,000 people had ever had it

She left school early that year

We all made a big poster, signed it, and brought it to her house

Her parents had a basket outside their house for gifts

Most days that basket was filled

I visited in between chemotherapy rounds

Hoping to distract her from the sickness

Hoping

Someday

She would be okay again

Every day

Was a battle

She faced

Last year

My best friend

Beat cancer

In September of 2023

She rang the bell

Her resilience and courage

Cannot compare

To that of any other

She fought incredibly hard

And without her in my life

I would never be

Who I am today.