Mary Ann

"I can't just forget you. I don't even want to."

Hi, Mary Ann. I’m sorry; I know it’s been a while since I have been up to see you. It's just so hard…I never know what to say. Every one said it would get easier, but it hasn’t. (Pause) It’s so hard to believe that it’s been a year since it happened. I still get up some times on Saturday mourning and rust to the phone to call and see if you want to go skating or just hang out. Once right after it happened I actually got your number dialed. Your mom answered and I realized that…that you weren’t there anymore. It just hurts so bad, Mary Ann. No one knows how bad it still hurts. Everyone tells me just to move on. But I can’t Mary Ann. You were my best friend. You still are. I can’t just forget you. I don’t even want to. My memories of you are all I have left. And sometimes they’re all that make me want go on. I miss you most of all at night. I just lie there and think about how there’s not going to be any more sleepovers, or anymore shopping trips. I think about how…I’m never going to see you again, but then I can almost hear you telling me that it’s not true that I will see you again. Then I remember the last thing you ever said to me. I had come up to visit you. It was a Sunday. The cancer had spread almost completely through your brain, and when you spoke you hardly ever made sense anymore, but that day, that day for some reason you were okay. When I first saw you I started to cry. You were talking much better, but you look worse than I had ever seen you. Your skin was so pale, your eyes looked like that had already begun to sink back into your skull, like you were already dying. I came and sat next to you and held your hand. I told you how much I would miss you and how I wasn’t sure if I could go on after you had died. And you laughed. You said, “It’s funny. Everyone here says I’m dying. No one understands that I’m just about to be born.” Your words made me feel better, but they me feel guilty, too. I wanted to keep you here, with me, even though I knew you wanted to go on. Still even today I'm being selfish. I realize all I really need to say to you is Happy Birthday Mary Ann.