Chapter 8

June 15, 2019

It's been a year today. A year without June. Ironic, huh? June dying in the month June. I can vividly picture her face, but only the pale, sickly version. I can only picture the June that was attached to what seemed like hundreds of machines and barely breathing. I can only picture the June that was begging me to help her, telling she didn't want to die. I can only picture June at her worst, begging me not to leave her side. I can't picture her before she was dying. Without the pictures, I wouldn't remember how her eyes shone, or how her smile lit up the room.

If it weren't for the videos, I doubt I would remember what her laugh sounded like. I doubt I would remember how her voice sounded before she was sick. I wish I could remember by myself, but I guess that the only June I ever really knew was sick. Even some of my earliest memories involve her in the hospital, machines keeping her alive. The cancer came when she was only three, I was eighteen months old. At first, it was hardly growing, staying in stage two. There was even a long period of time where she was in remission, but like all good things, that didn't last. From the year of 2017-2018, it spread throughout her body like wildfire. We all knew the end was coming, she had been announced as terminal since December of 2017. I guess I thought I was prepared to lose her, but in reality I wasn't. I don't think I ever would have been ready to lose her.