Short Stories

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I don't remember the LAST time I saw her alive. It might have been sometime in late autumn, before she became too ill to attend school, or perhaps it was during the winter before she and her fourth-grade classmates learned the meaning of "leukemia'. I know it wasn't in the springtime; that's when she died.


The FIRST time I saw her is another matter. Many years, harboring the full-range of human emotion and circumstance, have elapsed, yet not a shadow of that meeting has escaped my memory. Time, the predator of recall, has a way of eroding details of the past into shapeless blurs, but those SPECIAL happenings, of even earliest childhood, remain intact and forever in sharpest focus.

Almost everything about the arrival of Sarah Dillon, the new girl in school, was typical...everything except Sarah. She, single-handedly, and without effort, made her arrival a day to remember. At the age of ten, she possessed a grace and a confidence that made her seem older and, in a pleasing way, superior to the rest of the class.

Sarah was a big-boned, healthy looking girl. She had smiling blue eyes and light-brown hair. She was the prettiest girl in school and EVERYONE knew it, except for her. She seemed more content concentrating on being everyone's 'best friend'. It was almost as if, from the depth of her being, she knew. She had detected an indication that her years might be few, and with a cheerful determination had set out to insert QUALITY into a life that would not accomplish QUANTITY. As I think back now, I have nothing tangible to remember her by. I simply remember HER.


Each day after school, for perhaps two or three months, she and I walked the half-mile from the school to the row of hillside houses beyond the Esso Station where we lived. There were fights with the brilliantly colored leaves of autumn and battles with the powdery snow of early winter. In school, there were shyly shared notes and homework comparisons which often erupted into arguments when our answers differed.

Those were the days of childhood, so comfortable, so uncomplicated, and secure. We did not know the fragility of our serenity; did not realize that an intruder could shatter all that we considered normal and permanent. It is difficult for ten year olds to grasp the presence of an unknown factor that makes a shambles of that security. Those days became the days of our darker learning experience when new, ominous words were introduced to our vocabularies; words with threatening undercurrents such as 'malignant', 'incurable', and 'terminal'.

The days became far between when Sarah could attend school...then finally she couldn't come at all. Teachers stood in two and threes in the hallways, speaking in hushed tones, with truly sorrowful expressions on their faces, about "the brave little girl who has leukemia and is not going to live".

I didn't see Sarah again after she stopped coming to school, even though we lived just a few houses apart. She was in a hospital in another town much of the time, but sometimes her mother or father would be in the road, or on the porch when I arrived home from school. They always waved, smiled, and said, "Sarah's fine. She said for us to tell you 'hello'". What a lift it was to be given hope. Could the teachers all be wrong? I hoped they were. I hoped the day would come when Sarah would be in the middle of all our lives again. I hoped the familiar pattern would not have to change after all. It was as if the threatening words were just a passing batch of dark winter clouds which the balmy breezes of spring would remove from the scene.

Springtime didn't arrive for Sarah. She didn't live to feel those first warm winds. For a while, I felt if she had lived until the weather got REALLY warm, the summer sun might have cured her. I was too young to know of the relentless and uncompromising pursuit of leukemia, once it fastens itself to its victim.

The day came in the springtime, when I left school and headed in the opposite direction, away from the row of hillside houses beyond the Esso Station. My route took me to the funeral parlor where I saw Sarah for the last time as the girl of ten,which she must forever remain.


In my reverie, I have thought often of that grace, that confidence, that superiority. I have thought of the smile, the blue eyes, light brown hair and unconditional friendliness. The years have done little to diminish those unique qualities and attributes.

I cannot question the circumstances which prevented Sarah Dillon from reaching womanhood. I can, however, wonder (and I do). I still remember a very special, too short interlude in my young life, and the little girl who walked confidently to center stage...smiled broadly, bowed graciously and was gone.


You are in my thoughts from time to time, Sarah, and remembered to this day.



I'LL ALWAYS REMEMBER YOU

Each time I see beauty, you'll share it with me
Though your presence is memory now,
We shared a connection that taught me to care;
Your caring for me showed me how.
I'll never see Springtime but what you'll be close
In thought and in recall so clear,
And when I hear laughter or see someone smile
It's the sound of YOUR laughter I'll hear.


I'll never know sorrow but what I'll be glad
That we traveled together a while;
The influence you gave,
(In a way you still do);
With each time I remember your smile.


You'll be close to my heart, and still on my mind
When life takes on faded hue,
You're as special today, as you were long ago,
And I'll always remembe you.


By: Howard L. Pierce

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