TFIOS: Hazel's Last Days

It’s been about six months since Augustus’s passing. I would’ve gone to visit him myself but I didn’t have the capacity to walk anymore, let alone drive. Mom pushed my wheelchair through spring’s first blooms and onto the path that would eventually lead us to Gus’s resting place. As we kept getting nearer, I kept thinking about how it’s not really Gus underneath that mound of Earth anymore. He was just another decomposed body, joining once again with the Earth and put back into the endless, non-stop rotation we call Life.

We stopped in front of this slightly pretentious marble blue gravestone with a little cross sprouting at the top like a unicorn horn. It was very Augustinian, the only thing it needed was a personal quote engraved on it. Quite possibly his half-smiling face too.

“Honey, we’ll be over there, okay?” Dad assured me as he squeezed my shoulders.

It was just Augustus and I, once again.

“Hi, Augustus,” the grave did not talk back.

“Gus, my love, I’m in my post-miracle days now. The Phalanxifor stopped being the God damned miracle it was supposed to be,” deep breaths, Hazel, “I don’t have long left the Doctors said.”

I’ve always understood my life span was questionable. It wasn’t a new fact, the Doctors were only numbering my already limited set of days.

I had the same lack of confidence that he couldn’t hear me when I was at this funeral. Though I still wanted to go see him, even if it’s not him and just a physical marker of where he is in this world. I had no idea where he was but I wanted to be with him in big-S Something. For him to be completely non-existent is more unbearable than his death. His non-existence will only validate his fear of not ever being significant.

That’s when I remembered, “Gus, you are significant to me, present - “ the lump in my throat started rising in the same way fluid was rising in my suckish lungs.

“I just wanted to let you know, so you’ll be prepared if you see me around,” I sighed, catching for air non-cancerous reasons.

Somewhere in the background I can hear my dad quietly sobbing.

“I’ll be okay, Gus. Okay?”

Silence, more sobbing.

“Okay.”

And I broke because this will be really happening. I am well acquainted with Death. I know that I will only ever be terminal. Unfortunately, there is an unquestionable difference between knowing facts and experiencing the motions. The facts greatly undermine the motions.

I am going to die.

My parents will be in the position I’m in now. They’ll be trying to grasp the cold fact that I’m not alive. However, they still entertained the idea I still existed for their own sake.

Mom came by my side and just hugged me, stroking my head. I could feel dad squeezing my shoulder again.

---

Mom and Dad stood over me for a few moments. I was on the hospitable bed with various tubes lacing it and out of my body.

For a while it was just the three of us stuck in a freeze frame of the Universe’s grand show. I was grateful for it’s perpetual movements for I wanted this moment to be our own. A moment for us to dawn the very fact of my coming non-existence.

“Mom, Dad” I heaved as clearly as I could.

“It’s okay, baby, you can go. We’ll be ok”

“We love you, we love you”

I sighed and smiled, closing my eyes. I wanted to ensure they were ready. Gus was right about something, everyone wants to leave their mark. I was no different for I wanted to leave mine. Though to me, significance can only be called significant if there were people who remembered me as I wanted to be remembered. I had my parents and they were enough for me.

The Universe passed over us.
I left my mark.
The unerasable scar on my parents.

See you Augustus.