• Well, hello. I'm Yumi Ryouke(RYE-you-kay) and I am 10 years old. I have long dark brown hair and green eyes. I absolutely love reading and writing and drawing. I love the way the letters blend together to make bueatiful, poetic words. I love people who speak comforting words, as if they were reading from the book of God. I love to watch kids through my window, and see them smiling, running around in the golden sun, playing games that had rules that made little sense, but were so amusing. Its like I was there, running around with them.

    Now, you may ask me, why I don't go and join them. Well, I have leukemia. I was but 3 years old when I was diagnosed. It is a memory burned into my mind, scarring it, and I know it can't be wiped away or hidden. I'm going to die in a few years at most, and I know it. But all the other kids here at the hospital smile, and lie, saying that I'll get better, that I'll live.

    I remember when I was diagnosed with it. I told my mother that I felt tired, and I couldn't run around anymore without having to stop to regain my breath. My bones hurt, I told her, I was in pain, but she ignored me. She just thought I was lieing to get attention. Even though I was crying in abdomenal pain, she walked away, leaving me in my agony. I remember when I suddenly lost so much weight, my mom thought it was from me eating so little, so she tried to make me eat more. I just couldn't. That's when I got a horrible fever and was bed ridden for many days. That finnally convinced her to take me to the doctor. I remember the needles pricking into my skin, th embarrassment of having to pee in a cup, the utter horror of the tubes of blood they drew from underneath my skin. I remember my mom crying after a phone call and the words she said.

    "Hey, honey," she said, bitter tears in her eyes. "Your gonna go to a big house, and your going to meet so many kids there. I know your scared of leaving the house, but it'll be fun, I promise." she said, leading me to the car, her face swollen.

    I remember the humiliation having to walk around with machines going in and out of me, tripping over the mangled tubes dragging on the floor as passerby looked on, unaware of my suffering.

    I remember going through the years, visits from my mother becoming less and less constant, until she stopped coming at all. I never even saw my father in my room, I hadn't seen him at all. Mother always said he was in a faraway place, that he couldn't call or write back.

    I remember I had a few friends, but they constantly left, and I'd never see them again. I asked the nurses, and they'd smile and say that they went home. I remember how I looked forward to running into my mother's arms, never to have to leave her warm embrace.


    During my seven long years in this place, I had no friends whom I could open up to, who I could trust.

    Until that fateful day when she came. Milissa. She was a wonderful girl, she wa a few years older, but a lifetime's wiser. I remember when she walked into my room, after I had finished crying, asking God why I had been the one to recieve his wrath. She walked in, a smile gracing her lips and a book held against her chest. Her smile faltered when she saw the tear streaks, but it regained its strength and she hugged me, something I had not felt in such a long time. I remember that day, she read to me, the first time I had heard a story in five years. I let my mind wander as she told tales of beautiful princesses being rescued by a handsome prince, who had slayed a dragon. I visualized horses trotting along, carrying the new king and queen of the land.

    She came back the next day, and red me another story, one of a girl going from a slave girl to a queen.

    I remembered trying to mimick her, have her feather light laugh and her soft voice. I wanted to be her. I wanted to be pretty, and poetic, and have hair. I wanted to bask in the sunlight, tanning my pale skin on a sandy beach.

    But I couldn't, I had to settle for a window view of it and stories.

    Milissa came everyday there after, I remember how my heart leapt in an unknown feeling, as she walked through, sometimes soaked in rain, but she always had a book. I remember telling her my secrets, I remember her sholder being the only thing to muffle my sobs and screams. I remember how she pet my back, tell me that it'd be okay, that she'd be there.

    I remember when I was going to tell her how much I cared and appreciated her, how much she had saved me.

    I waited, smiling in my room, waiting for her to walk through that door and hold me, like always. I waited for what seemed like hours, daylight giving in to darkness, the sun creeping down and the moon climbing up. I remember waking the next day, staying up all day, waiting for her. I waited for days, wanting to feel her arms tight around me. Soon, days gave in to weeks, which turned into months.


    Still, she never walked through that door.

    To this day, I await her return. One whole year later, I still wait. My feelings have not faded or wavered.

    But, the doctors are performing more and more painful tests, despite my pleas for a break. Again, just like my mother had, they ignore my cries.

    I write this, unknowing of my fate. I do not know how much longer I have, but I hope that I have been understood beyond this hospital.