I sat in silence as people come and go-family, friends, classmates, neighbors.. Ivan's mother was handling herself really well, shaking hands with every visitor. When the crowd clears, she would seat beside me, on the verge of breaking down. I would wrap my arms around her and she would murmur a silent thank you.
Ivan's cancer progressed too quickly, and the absence of treatment did not help. When we were speaking on the phone he mentioned about having a very bad headache. When we hung up, he just collapsed, his mother said. He was writhing in pain when they got to the hospital. He died on midnight.
No we didn't make it. We weren't able to meet on the seventh day. We weren't able to fulfill our promise. If I didn't crash my car and slept for two days we would have seen each other. But things happen for a reason, what the reason was, I still do not know.
I broke an arm and had bruises all over. I live on pain killers to survive. But I survived. Unlike Ivan.
He died on Monday, while I was asleep. He didn't wake up from when he was rushed to the hospital until he died the following day. It was peaceful, his mom said. He might be in pain but he was asleep until he breathed his last. His heart just stopped and his mom signed the DNR. She couldn't see her only child suffer more than he already had.
I guess I was thankful I was asleep during it all because I would rather have my last memory of Ivan at the amusement park, eating ice cream, his smiling face, pale despite the heat, his laughter, his cold hands in mine, his voice .. I'd rather hold on to those memories than seeing his last, dying breath.
Today's the second day of the wake and Ivan will be buried in three days time, on Sunday. I realized how quickly things happened between us.
I met him last Monday, went to volunteer, Tuesday we were at the movies. Wednesday we volunteered again. Thursday we danced with his mom. Friday, I learned of his cancer, we went on that Japanese restaurant I really liked. Saturday we went to the amusement park. Sunday we were both at the hospital, Monday he died. Tuesday I woke up and he's no longer with me. And on Sunday he'll be buried. By the next Monday I'd be back in school, that time it will just be me.
"I wish I had more time with him"
"We all do, son. Sometimes we take things for granted, thinking there will always be tomorrow, but it's not always the case. Sometimes we only have today." Ivan's mother, I admired how she could handle herself, she's so strong I envy her. "When we found out about Ivan having cancer, we changed the way we lived, and because of that, because of him, we learned to make the most of our today not expecting if tomorrow will happen. We can't do things we may regret because having regrets are the luxury of the living, when you die, you cannot do over, no chance, no reset."