My Aunt live in Missouri. She has so much property I have yet to find where it ends.The one thing that I have found and have been secretly been going to for years is a secluded little river far back on her property.

It takes about thirty minutes, walking, to get to the river. Whenever my family visits My Aunt I spend a lot of time back there. It amazes me all the beauty in that little creek: The water is as clear as the sky on a perfect day, the tall grass provides coolness in the summer and the tall trees provide shade. There are also a lot of flowers lining the river, so many i have never seen in my life before, blue flowers, pink flowers and even some green flowers, it is all so beautiful. But the most beautiful part of the creek is the person who goes there with me, my cousin, Aiden.

At the age of four Aiden was diagnosed with cancer, he never understood why he was so weak or why he lost his hair and I couldn’t bear to explain it to him so I told him,”God just wanted you to be more beautiful than everyone else.” I felt bad for lying to him but I just couldn't say the truth. I think he liked my way of looking at it better than the doctors, he refused to believe anything he heard the doctors saying, I knew it was all true but I couldn't let him believe it. The subject of his cancer was a hard one to avoid with him since everyday when we went down to the creek all we did was talk all day. Sometimes I know he could see right through my lies but he didn’t care all that mattered was that I was there with him.

When I wasn’t in Missouri with Aiden he would call me everyday after school to tell me about what he wore how his classes went and sometimes he even told me about what he had for lunch. For me I didn’t care what we talked about just the fact that I got to talk to him was all that mattered. I held onto every word he told me in those phone calls because anyone of them could’ve been his last.

I spend all of my summers in Missouri with Aiden, riding bikes down his street, going window shopping, I even got to meet some of his friends. Even though he didn't have much strength he was one of those I-don’t-care-I’m-doing-it-anyway kind of kids, so one summer he brought some baseball gear he got for christmas down to the river and made me teach him how to play. He is a really fast learner, that day alone I taught him how to catch and throw, the next how to hit. We would practice twice a week, I loved it because I could see him falling in love with a sport that I have always loved, about halfway through the summer we found a baseball field so I took him out there and hit grounders to him and let him hit.

The next summer when I visited I found out he made the local baseball team, but I also learned his health had gone way down. I knew he didn't have much longer left and he couldn't ride his bike anymore and he couldn’t play baseball so everyday we were down at the river until it was dark. Aiden was a smart kid, he knew he didn’t have much time left so when I left that summer he told me, “it’s ok if you go down to the river without me, don’t worry I won’t get mad.”

In the winter we got a call saying aiden was in the hospital and that this was it, we got down there as fast as we could and when we got there as I walked in the room aiden looked at me, gave me a little smile, turned his head away and closed his eyes, forever, I immediately broke down crying his mom walked over to me and whispered in my ear, “he told me he wasn't going to die happy unless he saw you, he loved you and he died with a smile on his face because of you, thank you for helping him live his life to the fullest.” She handed me a note it had my name on it and it was in Aidens handwriting I was too teared up to read it right then, and I couldn’t read it any other time either because as soon as I saw his writing I couldn’t help but cry.

So now i'm standing here today where aidens grave is, right beside the river. I come down here everyday and sit by his grave but today, today was different, today he would have been ten years old. and today more than a year after his death I'm reading the card he wrote me for the first time it says,

Grace, you mean everything to me, you are the best cousin I could possibly have, I just wanted to say thank you. Thank you for making me believe I was beautiful. Thank you for helping me keep my spirits up. Thank you for teaching me a new sport. Thank you for teaching me life skills. And thank you most of all for putting some sort of meaning in my life, there is one thing I want you to do, please don’t cry about me I know you're a cryer but i don’t want you to be sad about me, even though i'm not there I still can't stand to see you sad. P.S. I love You, love Aiden.

Aiden was better than a brother, he loved with all his heart and he loved everybody, he did not have one mean bone in his body. Nobody in my life has ever meant more to me then aiden. whenever I go down to the river I feel like aidens there with me even though I know he’s not. Aidens creek will forever hold an irreplaceable part of my heart.