…

I will never forget this day, February 4th, 2015. It felt like yesterday because since then, time has been moving in slow motion. I had been feeling sick recently and had thought nothing of it. It was just the chills and maybe I was losing some weight, but I didn’t give it a second thought. Until this “sickness” didn’t go away. My mom, her name is Aileen, suspected something was wrong even though I told her I was fine. She had a gut feeling, or mother’s intuition as she called it. She knew something was wrong and made me go to the hospital. I’m terrified of hospitals. I don’t know if it’s the fact people die everyday in those hospitals or if it’s that smell of cleaning agents and bleach that hospitals have, they just freak me out. At the hospital they ran so many tests that I thought we would never leave that place. Just laying on that bed, waiting, staring at the terrible fluorescent lights that just made my eyes hurt. They poked at least four needles into my arm, I say at least because after four I just stopped counting. My mind felt like it was going to explode, there were so many thoughts running through my head, “what if i’m dying” I whispered to myself under my breath and thank God no one heard. I didn’t want anyone to know how terrified I was. I had to focus on the positives, focus on the light.

…

Well, turns out I am dying. I’m trying to convince myself that this is all a dream, this isn’t real. But I keep waking up, opening my eyes, and seeing those bright lights starring back at me, gazing into my soul. I have leukemia and only 3 years to live, the doctors say. It was on February 23rd, 2015, that I was given the approximate day I would die. My parents were devastated, but what could they do, what could I do. I just had to focus on the light. If I was happy then maybe people around me would be too. I just had to be the light of everyone’s life.

…

I always knew this day would come. It’s March 16th, 2018 and I’m not afraid. I’m sick and I know it. Everyone knows it. Alina is my name but I never truly understood it until I was diagnosed and given a shorter expiry date on my life. Alina means “light” in Greek. I have to be strong because I have to be the light of my family and the light of my own life. But now, I truly am the light, because I see it, I see the light and and it envelops me. So warm. So bright. The light.  

…