She Had The Kind Of Fingers You

This Is What Happens: Somebody—girl Usually—got A Free Spirit, Doesn't Get On Too Good With Her Parents. These Kids, They're Like Tied-down Helium Balloons. They Strain Against The String And Strain Against It, And Then Something Happens, And That String Gets Cut, And They Just Float Away. And Maybe You Never See The Balloon Again . . . Or Maybe Three Or Four Years From Now, Or Three Or Four Days From Now, The Prevailing Winds Take The Balloon Back Home . . . But Listen, Kid, That String Gets Cut All The Time.

There Was Quite A Lot Of Competitiveness About It, With Everybody Wanting To Beat Not Only Cancer Itself, But Also The Other People In The Room. Like, I Realize That This Is Irrational, But When They Tell You That You Have, Say, A 20 Percent Chance Of Living Five Years, The Math Kicks In And You Figure That’s One In Five . . . So You Look Around And Think, As Any Healthy Person Would: I Gotta Outlast Four Of These Bastards.

I Was Not Religious, But I Liked Rituals. I Liked The Idea Of Connecting An Action With Remembering.

More Than Anything, I Felt The Unfairness Of It, The Inarguable Injustice Of Loving Someone Who Might Have Loved You Back But Can't Due To Deadness, And Then I Leaned Forward, My Forehead Against The Back Of Takumi's Headrest, And I Cried, Whimpering, And I Didn't Even Feel Sadness So Much As Pain.

Just Remember That Sometimes, The Way You Think About A Person Isn't The Way They Actually Are... People Are Different When You Can Smell Them And See Them Up Close.