Dear Diary,

I know that it won’t be long now. They think I don’t know but their faces read like open books. It’s a waiting game, that’s all. A flower that’s slowly wilting away.

Cancer. I first heard the word when I was three. I didn’t know what it meant, just that it made me mother cry. No one ever did tell me exactly what it meant. Oh I knew all about the blood cells and the chemotherapy and losing my hair. But no one ever came out and said Geana your going to die. Still, I knew. I have had a lot of time to learn how to eavesdrop, a lot of time to ponder what I heard. The doctors never said it either, not straight out, they used fancy words like terminal and fatal not simply death. But I understood. Like my mother said, I’ve always been a smart girl, even when I’m throwing up so much it feels like my insides turned inside out.

This is how I found out that I have only a few weeks more to live. And to tell you the truth I’m not scared. I’m tired. I’ve been fighting for so long that all I want to do now is sleep. And what is death after all but a forever sleep?

All I can do now is wonder how it will happen. I hope it’s quick, hope my mother doesn’t cry too much. Will my vision slowly fail until there is nothing left but grey grain that falls in front of my eyes like rain? Will it be iridescent and wonderful like a rainbow crossing in front of me? Will I be gone in a finger snap of will my essence slowly trickle out of me like maple syrup? It makes me almost happy to know that soon I will know these secrets, secrets man may never know, until, that is they reach their own forever sleep.

And will I go to heaven, if there is in fact heaven at all? And if I do what will it will be like? I won’t know for a little while longer I guess but if I had to describe heaven this is how I would:

I would walk, yes walk for the first time in how long, up cloud steps, dress all in white. And I would have hair, not my thin, mousy kind but long and golden, like an angels. And there at the top of the steps would be an alabaster city, shining with some inner light. And inside there would be flowers and rivers and warm green grass and multicolored trees. And I could run and dance and laugh, feeling the sun and the grass and the water. I would feel the rush of the ocean the rough bark of a palm tree, the feather feel of fresh fallen snow. And at last I would lie down and rest after so long, knowing my family was safe, that they were happy. And I would sleep there forever in the autumn light.