When the doctor first told us, we didn't take it seriously.
Sometimes diagnoses are wrong, they just have to be.
You can defy gravity, we were all so sure.
After all, everyone loves a good underdog story.
One night we woke to the sound of your coughs.
High and scratchy, devil sounds that moved through the air of the silent house like broken ocean waves.
To say the least we all cam running.
Only to find you drowning in a pool of deep red blood.
And all of a sudden, it became real.
White counters, sterile metal tools, starched sheets and gowns.
I used to sit in that blue plastic chair by your bed and tap my fingers.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Day in, day out.
Laughing, talking, you were yourself when it came to turning your nose up at hospital jello.
Maybe it'll be alright, we thought.
After all, everyone loves a good underdog story.
Weeks and weeks passed by, our days filled with doctor's notes and medical jargon none of us understood.
I wanted to hold my head and scream loud enough to wake you to your senses.
To scare that awful beast they call cancer out of you.
To prove the doctors wrong.
You barely laugh anymore.
Every day I'd bring you something and soon even giant stuffed bear only cracked a smile on your frozen face.
Only days left, the doctors told us, but no one listened.
After all, everyone loves a good underdog story.
After that, whenever I sat in my blue plastic chair your eyes always seem to be closed.
So tired, you said.
Your chest would heave with a thousand breathes you somehow knew you'd never breathe.
I was beginning to realize this wasn't an underdog story.
Your hand was cold whenever I held it.
Every beep of the heart monitor was like a knife slashing my soft skin, reminding me the person I was holding was still alive.
All of us knew by now, but no one thought about it.
No one thought at all.
After all, everyone loves a good underdog story.
I watched you one night, like I watch a sunrise.
Like you were so bright I couldn't look right at you, just unfocus my eyes and witness the spectrum of the horizon.
In a way, as dull and faint as you were you still shone.
You were fading.
So I guess I knew even before the hear monitor even turned into a straight line, a flat dessert.
We all cried but I screamed the loudest.
How was this fair, how is this fair?
I begged you to come back, but of course cancer is like a merciless giant that didn't take prisoners.
You stayed immobilized on that stiff white blanket, seeping some of it's lifelessness into you I guess.
So maybe it was an underdog story.
Only, the real life kind.