Brittany loved volleyball, friends, and parties too. When it came to painting, that’s all she wanted to do. She painted everything she saw through her big, brown eyes. Some days, she painted everything that passed by her bay window, but one day, that would all change.
“Hey Brittany. What has been wrong with you lately? You don’t seem like yourself,” questioned one of her best friends, Cortney.
“I really don’t know. I’ve been feeling rather dizzy, and my muscles ache a lot, but I have an appointment tonight at five o’clock. Maybe they can tell me what is wrong,” she replied.
“Well I’ll call you when you get home from your appointment and see if you are okay,” Cortney said.
As Brittany walked into her house, a sharp pain raced through her body. It felt as if Brittany was being slammed into a brick wall over and over. As she collapsed to the floor, she hit her head on a glass doorknob, knocking her unconscious. Brittany laid there cold weak and alone. Her body was in a curled up tight ball. She laid there still, and waited for her mother to come home from work, but the reaction was a complete surprise.
Finally, Brittany’s mother, Carol, arrived at home. When she saw Brittany lying there on the floor, she shrieked and almost collapsed onto the floor as well. Quickly, Carol rushed to the phone and dialed for help, for in ten minutes time, the ambulance at their house to save Brittany. They sped at seventy miles-per-hour, and finally arrived at the Memorial Hospital in Madison, Wisconsin. Her doctor ran a couple of tests to see if everything was alright. Then a nurse came out with a look of sadness and said,
“I’m terribly afraid ma’am, but your daughter has Leukemia and only about three months more. I’m very sorry,” she told Carol.
Upon hearing the news, Carol rushed into the room where Brittany was. She stayed by her side the whole two weeks Brittany was there. Finally, Brittany could go home. That night was the night that she cried her eyes out dry from wondering what it was like to die, but one day she would know what that felt like.
On a warm Saturday afternoon, her parents told her something very exciting. Her mom and dad held her tightly and told her that they were going to Florida. Since that is where Brittany wanted to be when she died, they thought that they would make her happy. The next day, they were on a plane to Fort Myers, Florida, so Brittany was very excited, so everything was good.
Brittany swam in the Atlantic all day and painted pictures of the ocean and the beach. She became weaker and weaker, so it made it hard for her to stay awake. Finally, she was so weak that she had to stop swimming. One warm day she met a guy named Derek.
Derek and Brittany walked along the beach everyday. She painted pictures of lying on the warm sand. One day, she painted a picture of herself and said to him,
“When I leave this place, I want you so have this picture of me to remember me by.” Her eyes filled with sadness thinking of the day she would die, so Derek comforted her for over an hour.
On a warm Friday evening, just about four o’clock, Derek gave her an Italian charm bracelet that had everything that described her. The charms had things like a B for her name, a Japanese symbol for love, a heart, a monkey for her favorite animal, and so many more. Every one of them were so special to Brittany. He told her that she meant more to him than anything else in the whole world. As they were walking back to the hotel, Brittany collapsed to the ground. The agony she was feeling was getting so strong she could hardly bare it. She told him that she would watch over him, and that she loved him. Brittany laid there in the sand not moving her body. Brittany was gone. As Derek held her in his arms, he promised her that he would never forget her, so he never did.