A Friend To Be Remembered

She didn’t deserve that; she was too nice of a person. They say they don’t know when it started, but we know when it ended. That day was February 27th 2005… Melissa Rugusa, she was a nice and trustworthy friend; towards the end of the fifth grade she had been feeling nauseous at home and had been throwing up, including having server migraines. She ended up seeing a doctor and grimly what she had was a brain tumor. Yes, an aggressive brain tumor that was the size of a grape fruit, that normally someone in their 40’s would have a better chance on getting. And here’s a 12 year old girl with it! Eventually she lost her hair from the KEMO therapy and had to wear a bandana or hats on hear head to school. No one ever made fun of her, if anyone ever did the entire class would be out to get them; Melissa wasn’t just and just anyone’s friend she was everyone’s friend.
The day no one saw coming had arrived, by now I had moved and had everything unpacked, I was in my warm, cozy room playing video games. Then the phone rang. “Hello…?”, my mom answered. Within a few moments she hung up. “Mike?”, she called. Her voice sounded as if she had something in her throat and was about to cry. Suddenly, inside I was freezing. Then I heard her footsteps making their way upstairs. Neurotically I shut my door, wanting to get away. Then I slowly heard the door open, then she said it. “Mike, Melissa’s dead…” Her voice froze in time. And just like that, I heard the sound of glass shatter. My room became ice cold. Almost to the point almost to the point of being unbearable, and I acted as if those bone chilling words didn’t phase me. My mom softly spoke, “Her wake is in a few days we should go to pay our respects.” Moments later, I heard the sound of crying in the other room.
At the wake, a saw a few friends or should I say enemies. The 10 of them had betrayed me the year before. I didn’t say much, I spoke mainly, to myself. When you walked into the funeral home, you could almost feel death, was there before you walk in. Before, I approached the casket, I said a few words of encouragement to Mrs. Ragusa was crying solemnly to herself as people talked back and forth to her. As I approached Melissa, no, it wasn’t Melissa. It was just an empty shell with Melissa’s image. I quietly kneeled down; said a prayer and crossed myself. I didn’t cry and I couldn’t cry. As a matter a fact I didn’t mourn at all, I was just in shock and hoped for the best. (I lost all my tears the two years before when my grandpa died.)
I looked at her in the denim clothes that she used to wear to school. Not like the black or white clothes that most people are dressed in. On her chest was a small stuffed toy pig with wings, almost watching her. I walked outside, I saw my OLD friends (enemies) chatting away like nothing happened. I couldn’t accept that, Melissa wasn’t anyone, she was someone. Not even that, she was a true friend that was hard to come by. She was a true friend to be remembered.
The day she died I wrote a poem on a website dedicated to her, which I saved and is written below.

The Closed Book

An enigmatic fate
A sorrowful destiny
A story left untold
Yet it is still ongoing
Like a world or erratic fates twisting
Lives changing
Stories that end

And yet…

Somehow
Live on
Never to end
Instead
They guide others
Through their own stories
Helping them make the right choices
Never to be forgotten
But remembered
Forever…