Write Me for You

by Tillie Cole

“Love,” my mama said, “is the most powerful thing in the world. It can heal and it can grow in the most unlikely of places. When all is lost, love blooms.”

“Love finds us in strange places, Jesse,” she said, a singsong note to her voice. “It can sweep in hard and fast.”

Who said adversity couldn’t unite people?”

There was one thing for certain: when you were diagnosed terminal, what happened after death became a constant wonder.

“We come here, together, and fight through this as one—while watching movies, naturally.”

Together, Neenee had said. We would get through this better if we stuck together, so that’s what I intended to do.

“You’re a good man, Jesse Taylor. And one way or another, the world will see that. I promise.”

“I might only be seventeen, Junebug, but I know what it’s like to have little time left. And as much as I want us to come out of this place in remission, cancer has taught me that nothing in life is too fast. Time is relative. How I feel about you…” He paused, and I could see him trying to find words. “It’s not about time. It’s not about what right or wrong. It’s about connection and wanting to be with you every day.”

When you’d been told you were dying, a catalogue of missed opportunities played in your head like a movie, showing you things you wished you’d done earlier, making you mourn things you might never get to do. Cancer taught you that death waits for no one, and you had to cling to life’s joys while you could.

“Write me for you. In your great love story. Fall for me.” He pressed his forehead against mine. “Allow me to fall for you. Write me for you.”

I’d made it my mission to always tell her just how beautiful she was until she believed it too.

“You’re my favorite part of every single day, Jesse.”

“And I’m not sure if you have guessed it yet, but you have wrapped yourself so tightly around my heart that you are the first thing I think about in the morning and the last thing I think about before I close my eyes at night.”

“Cancer is trying to take me from this world.” My heart thudded on the ground. “I despise it. But I will forever be grateful that it led me to you.”

“I want us to live, June. If the only way we get to do that in the end is in your book, then at least I’ll have the comfort that somewhere, out there, in a parallel universe, we are really making a go of it. And that even though life has roughed us up a bit, we’ve turned it around and made it our bitch.”

“I like that, the idea that my words, my story—our story—is just the narration to an already-existing life in another world.”

“I want to leave my fingerprint on the window of the world.”

“If I die,” I whispered a while later, “I want to go just like this—with you next to me, holding my hand.” June’s lips trembled. But she nodded, making me that silent promise. “Write our story, Junebug. Let our parallel-universe selves live the best lives they can. We deserve to have our happily ever after, even if it’s in another life.”

Cancer had at least taught us that living in the moment was the only way through this life.

“A lot of people with cancer struggle with their mental health. We are constantly thinking and talking about dying, Jesse. That’s not an easy thing for anyone to cope with.”

“I love you without expectation. I love you with all my heart because you are the sweetest, kindest boy I know.” I smiled. “You make me laugh and show me that life is more than I thought it was. I adore you. And I don’t care what you do with your life as long as I’m beside you.”

I decided to make it my mission, for the rest of our lives, that I would be his reprieve when he put too many expectations on himself. I would be his gravity, grounding him, and I would be his sun, chasing away the dark clouds that would inevitably come.

I would be the girl who would cradle his heart until my very last breath—and even beyond.

Dying. Such a taboo subject.

That was the problem with dying or fighting a disease that was trying to destroy you—people didn’t treat you the same; they saw you as breakable and fragile.

“No goodbyes, remember,” he said, voice cracking. Since I’d gotten cancer, it had become my thing. I hated goodbyes. They always felt so final.

chest. It was strange thing to feel your body begin to fail you day by day, getting defeated by a too-strong opponent.

And to die madly in love with my soulmate? In the end, I couldn’t think of a better way to go.

My life was a miniscule grain of sand in the universe’s hourglass.

“We might not have a long life ahead of us, but maybe our love story will last like that star and be a comfort to somebody out there who needs to hear it, long after we’re gone.”

“I would want nothing more than to see a wrinkle form on my forehead, evidence that I was getting older and living my life. I would smile with pure joy seeing a gray hair on my hairline because it would mean that we were being given time.”

“And laughter lines,” she said, smiling. “I would watch those laughter lines grow deeper each year, rejoicing that I had the energy to laugh.”

“Because that’s my favorite thing to do with you: laugh. Through all the pain and the sadness, you have helped me keep joy in my heart this entire time, Jesse.” June’s eyes shimmered. “I don’t think you know what a gift that has been to me.”

“I never thought I’d get a chance to walk my daughter down the aisle.”

“Our forever is there; it just looks a little different to most people’s.”

“You get to walk me down the aisle, Daddy,”

you were all our wishes come true.”

“We were never able to give you a sibling, so instead we tried to give you the world. We loved you as best we could, darlin’. You are the bravest, sweetest human on earth, and it has been an absolute privilege to be your father.”

“Today, walking you down the aisle to the boy I’m pretty sure God designed perfectly for you…well, baby, it’s the greatest honor of my life. And for as long as I live, I will cherish it. I will always cherish you for showing me what unconditional love is and making all my dreams come true.”

“River Flows in You” by Yiruma,

Alphaville’s “Forever Young”

“We won…Junebug. We…didn’t beat…cancer, but we…won each other…in the…end.”

“Sleep, my baby boy. I’ll see you again someday soon.”

“We’ll always look at that star and know it belongs to you and Jesse, darlin’. We’ll search for it every night for the rest of our lives to keep you close to our hearts.”