Foreboding runs through my veins causing my heart to beat irregularly as my dad, usually so strong, leads my sister and I to the aging couch. As I sit down I feel so light and the only thing keeping me from drifting off, is the solid old brown couch. The couch that I lay on when my fever rages, or finish copious amounts of homework, is my only comfort. My dad’s forehead crinkles like it does so often. Words escape his thin lips. My emotions tear through my heart causing it to shatter into a puzzle that will always have one piece missing. Sadness spreads throughout my body like a lethal poison dying my heart with a pain too strong for a seven year old to bare. The world keeps whirling around me, but my second grade world freezes. Inhaling and exhaling is the only motion that is coming naturally. My fingernails dig into the my only comfort, ripping its seam.

My chapped face aches from so many tears sinking into its surface. I reach out to touch the blue puff of my sister’s coat to comfort her and we hold on to each other, our tears mixing. Breath, cry, eat, sleep. This becomes the only actions that I can possibly do. Flowers and cards take over the living room trying to work their way into my heart to form some kind of solace. The fruity odor permeates the air while people walk up and pray then hug me trying to tell me that they understand. For one hour I feelhappiness again while I am with my rambunctious cousin who actually does understand. We make people smile giving them vials of hope to hold onto for later. I draw with a dull pencil, a picture that will be forever with the one I love so much. My grandpa sees it and cries, he has to take off his large outdated glasses and tears make his eyes even more bloodshot. He loved her. I hold a tissue that is ripping from use and hug him with all the strength that I have left. Between us a current of hope is made and his mouth forms into a small hopeful smile.

I sit on the thinly cushioned seat that so many mourners have sat on before me. An urge to sprout wings and soar back home, to curl up on my familiar object of hope overcomes me with the force of a hurricane swallowing the lone, unsuspected hut on the water’s edge. I think back to the big word that changed my life. Leukemia. The stale hospital odor is so fresh in my mind that I convince myself that I smell it. I see my heroine sitting so fragile and strong. I see her limp curls stick to her forehead as she talks to me and gives me the memories of her in vivid color. Even at that young age I knew that one day those few precious memories would turn black and white.

Grief is the most powerful weapon. It affects people more than bombs, guns, or leukemia ever could. It warps minds and twists them into making you think that you are alone. But sometimes it makes people who they are today. Eventually we all get swept up by the current of life and start feeling the love that has been absent. And eventually all the pieces of my heart worked their way back together, held by something stronger than glue. My life unpaused and I felt the rush of life through my veins again. And now, I

sit down on the weathered coach, while sunlight dances on my tan legs and close my eyes watching the memories play out in color.