celeste winters ❅ d4

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INFORMATION

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BIOGRAPHY

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Before I Die



1. Write a book

2. Save a life

3. Collect one hundred flowers

4. Make sure my sister knows I love her

5. Stay up until dawn

6. Knit a scarf

7. Learn to swim

8. Teach Maisie to ride her bike

9. Catch a fish

10. Have them remember me





The Mirror Shows


1. Pale skin, papery and thin

2. Fine, whispy hair: brown

3. Yellowing and sunken cheeks

4. Lips, dry and bitten

5. Wide, dark eyes with long lashes

6. Heavy, arching brows

7. One lone scar on my chin

8. Bony elbows, bony knees

9. Blue and yellow bruises

10. Shaking fingers, marks from IV drips





Reasons to Live


1. Maisie 

2. Father

3. High tide

4. The trees in fall

5. Freshly baked cookies

6. Gloves in December

7. Frosted windowpanes

8. Bonfires

9. To make her proud

10. Building snowmen




Things Cancer Has Stolen


1. My hair, twice

2. Mother

3. Maisie's thirteenth birthday

4. Three Christmases in a row

5. Father's money

6. The strength in my body

7. Time

8. Maisie's smile

9. My childhood

10. And future



How the Get-Well-Soon Cards Described Me


1. Strong (They were wrong)

2. Bright and cheery (I smile)

3. Selfless (Time is value)

4. Friendly (I'm lonely)

5. Giving (Perhaps)

6. Precious (What does this mean?)

7. Positive (If I was sad, I'd be dead already)

8. Hopeful (Again)

9. Deserving (Lies)

10. Unlucky (I don't believe in luck)





Times I've Cried

1. When I was nine years old and my mother told me she had perhaps a year to live - I asked if if she'd be around to see next winter's snowfall, and she promised that she would build a snowman with me and read me stories every evening.

2. Six months later when the lukemia stole her and she broke her promises. Father sat by the window and didn't blink. Maisie, then just six years old, climbed into my arms hung on so tight I thought she might never let go.

3. At ten, when I found a baby bird with a broken wing and vowed to make it well again. I sang to it, struggled through heavy books that detailed correct care and woke up each hour all through the night to feed it. The following morning, when Maisie awoke me and I struggled to open my eyes, it was dead.

4. When the bruises started to show on my back I felt endlessly sick and father took my hand and led me right to the doctors, for he recgonised the signs. When they told me the sickness is in my blood, in every part of me, a poison just like my mother's, I did not cry. Father wept. Later, alone in my room, the tears flowed hot and filled with life.

5. The day they told me I was in remission. I'm not sure if happy tears counts, but that morning I felt as though I would live forever. 

6. Just a week later, at the age of thirteen, when I relapsed and the cancer came back stronger than ever. It wasn't the first time it returned after so many people assured me my veins were clean. But it was the time I learned not to trust anybody who says things are going to be okay. Least of all myself.

7. When Maisie attended her first reaping and I readied her carefully, braiding her hair and pinning her dress. She held my hand gently because I was ill, even though I knew she wanted to squeeze it tightly. In the district square, I couldn't promise her anything at all. Standing in my own section of fifteen year olds, I let my self be sad in silence.

8. Last year, when I was resting on a park bench and saw a man steal the coat of a homeless lady right before my eyes. I wanted to be strong enough to chase him and demand that he gave it back - that it was snowing outside, afterall, and where was his heart? But my legs were stiff and could barely move, and my entire body was tired, so tired. So, slowly, I removed my own coat and gave it to the lady. I arrived on my doorstep an hour later, blue and bleeding and sobbing into my hands.

9. The time I thought for sure it was my very last day. I spent the morning making lists of all the things I still had to do. I beamed at every visitor as though they weren't all telling me goodbye under the pretence of 'see you soon'. And then when darkness fell I lit a candle and wrote a letter to my family, over and over, filling the wastepaper basket with crumpled apologies. Nothing was right. The words couldn't stretch themselves big enough to describe everything that was good about the world. I fell asleep without ever finishing it.

10. The next morning, when I awoke to the sunrise and my sister presenting me with a plate of toast I could barely choke down and a cup of tea that was just the right amount of warm to fill my body with the faith it had lost in the evening before. I told Maisie "Thank you." She didn't understand why I was crying.

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COMPLETE

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