Best Friends...

‘Angels’… she breathed out like a sigh was drawn from the rampant thoughts in her head. She could see something that no-one else could, it was obvious. Her sweet blue eyes were widened in earnest, drinking in an invisible sight, savouring each lingering moment.

Blonde hair should have curled softly from her balding head and entwined itself around her shoulders, to skim the soft skin down her back. Instead, prickles of emerging hair gathered close to her scalp, gathering thick and united against the next round of destroying chemotherapy. A wave of drugs that runs through her body periodically over many years would soon cease. That hair would grow for mere weeks before it would grow no more at all. She knew that. No-one needed to tell her that her battle was up. Those struggling white blood cells tried desperately to fight a losing battle and band together to force back rapidly advancing cancer ‘enemy’ cells. Haemoglobin, platelet and marrow levels danced around her head in a confusingly complicated dance. Those levels, numbers, mere digits, would define her alive or dead. She knew that soon they would all drop to zero.

Scars that tattoo her hands run as deep as crevasses that appear in drought stricken outback land. Her own skin mimics the desperate battle that aligns with the severe drought that has been pounded into her home ever since she received her first news of the destruction that was to come. Each day, her neighbours and friends pray for rain to fall and nourish the parched, cracked earth. Each day, she prays for a miracle of red blood cells to multiply and build up a pathetic small hope in her so that the drought seems so much less devastating. Her hands were once so delicate but are now burned out and lined with scars of the graft-versus-host disease that were once a good sign for recovery. Doctors explanations never seem to add up because these days those scattered scars are not a blessing in disguise. These days, those twisting meshes of flesh seem like worthlessly suffered wounds because she, Lizzy Rose Linton, was going to die.

The last few months went in a blur. She recalled a few and sporadic moments of vivid consciousness in which she would wake to find her mother, father or sister at her side. It was in these times that she could reflect on what really made her love them. Then, suddenly she’d lose her grip in the middle of a special memory.

Her father’s large hands would be holding her safely in his arms with her body aged seven years old again. Even though she had her eyes closed, she knew that there would be stubble that seemed to her to be permanently stuck to his chin. As she felt his hands hold her delicately youthful body she giggled inside at the knowledge that she was not asleep at all. He would hold her, as around her the carols in the distance of her hearing would blare. Christmas time was all around her and she could feel the air was full with love. That moment held what she still knows as love today. Love for her, was in that time. Really, love for her was when she alone with her Dad, smiling that cheesy, front-teeth-missing smile. That smile would give away her secret as she feigned sleep for hours… but those loving and gentle hands still held her. He wouldn’t waver once, even though he knew.

Smiling still… still seven years old in your favourite pink dress… smiling… smiling, why?

And she slipped once more, into a new world that had started to grow on her. This world was incredible. She was still her thirteen-year-old self but those scars on her hands had gone. The centrifugal line was suddenly gone and various other foreign, medical objects suddenly dissolved from where they would protrude from her small, hapless frame. Here, there was no warning from the doctor to be careful when playing outside. She could throw a ball around all day and swim for as long as she pleased. She no longer felt the effects of the attacking chemo that seemed to force her appetite to nothing. Instead, she could indulge herself in anything her heart desired. Most of all, she could have friends. Through the years she’d spent little time in remission and ten-year-old girls seem to have little compassion or understanding for the girl that struggles to sit up in her bed to talk to her visitors. Suddenly, she had friends though. They came in her dreams, while she drifted between where she lived now and where she would go when she would finally lose the fight. Her friends didn’t care that she would die soon. They didn’t seem to care that all she wanted was for them to hold her some days, just so she knew that someone loved her. Those lovely people introduced her to more and more wonderful friends. There weren’t many names that she could remember but one day she met one man and his name seemed to stick in her mind.

Jesus…?

Had she heard that name somewhere? Somewhere…

‘Angels…’

Yes, she could see something that no-one else could pretend to see in their life. She had found her friends had an earthly name, even if she couldn’t remember their real ones. Their world seemed so wonderful, dreamlike and pretend. Now, she realised that their world was not as unreal as she thought it was, in fact, it was just as wonderful and a thousand times more real than any world she could ever belong to.

‘I’m praying for an angel to come and hold my hand

I’m afraid without her and I know she’d understand’

She remembered that little verse now. That silly little verse was something that had come from a tortured mind while she came to grips with the thought of losing her life as a mere child. She would never see her fourteenth birthday. She would never hold a boys hand or have a first kiss. She would never feel the shock of finally discovering she was finally a woman and getting her first period. She would never graduate high school or get a job. She would never make special friends that would follow her throughout her entire life. It burned in her mind that all these things had escaped her grasp without her notice. Her days were countless until they were abruptly numbered. Despair wound around her and she found herself praying… no, talking to God. She was asking just for a friend. There were no real humans that could look after her and honestly understand. Through un-measurable times of unconsciousness she began to learn that God had heard. Angels would appear and take her away from the life she lived that was bleeding down a drain so easily. Soon, she didn’t care for the times that she spent lying in that hospital bed surrounded by incessant beeping and the sounds of nurses doing their rounds. It was time to leave. There was nothing left here for her. Her angels, her friends, agreed but told her to wait.

Jesus. Yes, that name was familiar in her cloudy mind. As she grasped the hand of her closest friend, she approached him with curiosity scraping at her mind. Without any words, he knelt down and she fell into his embrace. He had the same strong and loving hands as her father. That strong recollection made a tear leak from her eye.

‘I’ll miss them,’ she said softly. She didn’t need to explain any more. He knew as he took her hand in his. Foggy vision began to lift has his warmth spread through her body. They were walking – she didn’t know, or care what their destination was. It didn’t matter anymore because she was walking away from the ruins of the life she had left.

Her curiosity soon gave way as they walked together, heading towards somewhere that the angels proclaimed as truly magnificent. In a small voice, she managed to mouth the words that were rolling on her tongue long before she opened her mouth.

‘Jesus, who are you?’ She asked, not sure of the answer she expected.

He said nothing for a while; he seemed to be thinking it over.

‘You know what?’ he replied. ‘I’m your best friend.’

A best friend is someone that follows you through your entire life, she mused. Looking over the thirteen short years that she had, she saw no real friends at all. Then, she remembered that poem that Mum had framed and hung on her bedroom wall.

One night a man had a dream. He dreamed he was

walking along the beach with the Lord. Across the

sky flashed scenes from his life. For each scene, he

noticed two sets of footprints in the sand: one

belonging to him, and the other to the Lord. When

the last scene of his life flashed before him, he

looked back at the footprints in the sand. He

noticed that many times along the path of his life

there was only one set of footprints. He also noticed

that it happened at the very lowest and saddest

times in his life. This really bothered him and he

questioned the Lord about it. "Lord, You said that

once I decided to follow you, You'd walk with me all

the way. But I have noticed that during the most

troublesome times in my life, there is only one set

of footprints. I don't understand why when I needed

you most you would leave me." The Lord replied,

"My son, My precious child, I love you and I would

never leave you. During your times of trial and

suffering, when you see only one set of footprints, it

was then that I Carried You."

A great realisation filled her chest as she turned around, swelling with pride and innocent love.

‘Jesus, you are my best friend.’