She almost looked like herself,
like she was just sleeping,
as she lay there in bed.
But the way she had shrunk
and the sickly, pale look of her skin gave it away.
A year prior we were on the warm sands of the beach.
She had just finally bought her dream home there.
We were enjoying the last bit of summer
as I prepared for my first year of high school.
Then came the diagnosis.
It was in her liver and it was in her pelvis
and it was made up of her.
I was told not to worry,
yet in the deepest pit of my stomach,
I knew the worst was coming.
First she lost her hair, then her ability to walk.
She was too sick and too weak for chemo to continue.
She looked just like a wilted flower,
as pain and sickness weighed down on her.
And in just a year, just one summer later,
she was gone.