ARRvol34 master reduced - Flipbook - Page 31
want to journal or scrapbook about. The days filled with best friend
baby showers, breastfeeding, bonding, rocking, cuddling, toothless
baby smiles, lullaby songs, nursery rhymes, sunshine, and pixie dust.
Days you have been holding on to since your closest friend got the
diagnosis and began to battle for her life, when your world turned
upside down.
You silently say a prayer for one of those long, warm, sunny,
cloudless days.
You approach the Crooked Mile and your little girl starts down the
serpentine path, her little shoes tapping on the smooth blue surface.
The path widens and twists, then narrows and bends. Your daughter
follows it around several times, then asks you to move on toward
the giant birdhouse, Owl’s house. She tells you that Winnie the
Pooh wants to visit with his friend, Owl.
At this point, you meet your friend by Owl’s house; she comes into
Fairytale Town with her two little boys in orange Tigger t-shirts.
She has short curly hair, and is very thin so she wears a red sweater
to keep warm, although the day is sunny with only the slightest
breeze. She looks pale, but the red sweater tints her cheeks a rosy
shade, so she wears it often. She hugs you, sits on the bench next
to you, and there you both sit in silence for a while, lounging in the
sun, watching your children bounce and laugh. Then your friend
in the red sweater tells you about the results of her recent medical
tests. Words such as cancer spreading, stage four, chemotherapy and
radiation not working, and surgery postponed fall from her lips like
pellets of ice from a winter cloud, freezing and piercing. You slouch
on the wooden bench, looking even more like Eeyore, listening, the
cold pain chilling your heart as the icy words sink in. You reach out
and rest your hand on your curly-haired friend’s arm, which feels
warm and cozy in the red sweater. She is so full of life, and it feels
so unfair to have your best friend suffer this way. You sit on that
warm wooden bench together, the one by the Winnie the Pooh story
23
