Zachary

Amongst the vending machines and year-old magazines in a place where we only say goodbye
It stung like a violent wind that our memories depend on a faulty camera in our minds"
 - "What Sarah Said", by Death Cab For Cutie

 
"Love and death, and death and love
Brutal romance
A silver thread, a sharpened knife
A spinning slow-dance
I can't remember before
Washing of wounds, won inner wars
Brutal romance"
 - "Brutal Romance", by Brooke Fraser



Your name is Zachary. We've never met. I don't know why I've been thinking about you recently, but I have. I was probably around 12 or 13 years old when my Mom started sharing stories about you with me. Your parents sent them in to a magazine that focused on Christians and homeschooling, so there were many people, many strangers, who heard about you, thought about you, prayed for you, like me. I don't remember how old you were when you were diagnosed with the brain tumor. Just that you were young. A child. There were treatments: chemo, I think, and maybe surgery. Long, long stretches in the hospital. Time when time probably seemed to both stand still and move forward relentlessly. I remember the tumor being described as being impossible to extract because of how rooted it was in your brain, so maybe there wasn't any surgery, just the hope that some other treatment, anything, might work. Prayers for a miracle.

There was hope, there was grief, and finally, there was saying goodbye. I remember the last article, the last entry submitted. It was a poem that your father wrote, and it was absolutely beautiful and painful and true. It was a string of words tumbling over each other: hospital beeps and sounds, the faces of other families, every feeling of living in a hospital and clinging to life while being so near to death. His words were raw and broken and good.

It's been a long time since I heard about you and felt from afar the struggles of you and your family. The gift and joy of life, the wrestling match of an approaching death. I never met you, I never saw your face or heard your voice or gripped your hand. But your name was Zachary, and I remember you.