When I first held Angie in my arms I felt her smiling. Her little pink face was twisting in a happy grimace and she instantly made me laugh. She looked so funny with her two-three curly stripes of fair hair, her big, round eyes, an almost invisible nose and a toothless wide open mouth that seemed to shout her ecstasy of being alive. When she started walking I realized that she would be a naughty child. She was so energetic, constantly jumping, running, falling, then rising up and jumping and running again. She started to grow beautiful thick blonde hair, covering her twinkling face in streams of messy golden rings. I thought to myself that nothing wrong could happen to this child, as she was so active, happy and had an amazing positive attitude. But last year in June she started to become very feeble, experiencing flus, headaches, stomachaches or nausea. It was unlike Angie to be in pain for such a long time and in October I took her to the children’s hospital. Up until that moment, here are a few flashbacks of Angie.
When I took her to kindergarten she was very excited to be around so many children that she could play with. She would hug her class mates the first thing in the morning and then spend the entire program running and playing, being Angie. She got in trouble a lot, because she could not stand still in the classes based on story – telling or learning in an old – fashion, desk sitting manner. Angie is not a child who can sit.
Once she came home and she did not want to say a word. She is usually very talkative, sharing everything with us, to show her excitement. She sat quietly at the table, covering her little angel face with her curly hair, like she was embarrassed. Up until that moment I had never seen her acting like this, and I realized that she was experiencing shame, but I was curious to know what drove her to this emotion. So I said to her:
“Angie, sweetheart, how was today at kindergarten? Did you have a lot of fun? ”
“Yes”, she said in an unconvincing tone, as if she had not even understood the question.
“Tell us what you did, won’t you?”
“No”, she replied reluctantly but then she continued “Mamma, am I a bad little girl?”
“Why do you ask me, Angie? Where did you hear this word?”
“Mrs. Farah said that girls who don’t sit and jump around in the class are little bad girls. I don’t want to be bad, mamma, but I can’t sit”, she said sobbing and gathering her golden rings around her eyes, to hide her tears.
She was so pure in that moment when she realized that she had to behave, although her temper would not let her. With her elbows raised up to the level of her eyes, all dressed in white and her beautiful, long, curly and messy hair covering her face, she looked like a cartoon angel. I felt like laughing at that image, but of course I stopped, realizing that this would only upset her more. Instead I said, while touching her shoulder gently:
“Listen to me, Angie, and I know you will understand. You are what you are and this is good and it can never be bad. It’s likewhen you look at the sky and you see it’s blue, is it good or bad?”
“Good”, she said in a comfortable tone.
“But sometimes, when it rains, it gets darker and it is no longer blue. Is this good or bad?”
“Good. I like rain”, she replied, this time smiling.
“So you can’t blame the sky for being blue or grey, because this is its nature. And you, precious, you are just like the sky. No one can tell you that you are bad, because it’s your nature to act differently.”
Immediately after saying these words, I realized that this might not have been the best strategy to explain Angie what is good and what is not, because she asked, with hopeful eyes:
“Then, can I play tomorrow when Mrs. Farah reads the story?”
I managed to explain that Angie was a special child, with an intense energy level and she could not resist too long sitting quietly. During the kindergarten she had a special program, designed on her energetic personality. Of course, she would come home with bruises and scratches, but she was happy, she did not seem to mind the pain at all.
Last year in June I took her to the beach and I told her that she was about to go to school. When she understood that her friends from kindergarten might not join her in the school she would go, she asked:
“But why do I have to go? Can’t I stay with them until I grow old like you?”
Sweet Angie, nothing she would say could ever offend anybody because the way she said it, with candor and naturalness and pure honesty. I just smiled and told her that she will make more friends at school.
The weather was nice, with temperatures between 25-30 degree Celsius, yet Angie got a cold in the middle of June. We stayed at the seaside a couple of days more, treating Angie with children medicines. She said she felt better, but this was because she did not care about the pain, as she wanted to play water volleyball with her dad. For a short while she gave no symptoms of sickness, but one evening she threw up and her fever was high.
We went back home, keeping a constant eye on her evolution. We kept her inside, for avoiding the risk of catching other bacteria and viruses that could aggravate her condition. She felt bored and expressed her boredom by pulling her hair down, asking us to take her out to the playground. She continued feeling nausea and her fever was high. With Angie it is hard to tell when she feels sick, because she always laughs and bounces with joy, with her hair all over her face and her shoulders.
As she was jumping around, pulling her hair, telling me that she was bored and wanted to go to the playground, she detached a thick strand of her hair from her head. She was holding it in her hand. But she ignored it. Just threw it and continued playing. The same evening she vomited again and fainted in my arms. The next thing I remember was being at the children hospital, next to the doctor who tested my child. He told me I should sit down. Then he informed me bluntly that Angie had a brain tumor. And it was malignant.
The next weeks Angie lost her hair almost completely. Her golden rings that she used for covering her eyes when she was felling upset or embarrassed, that she pulled down when she was feeling bored and that were hopping in each direction, on the rhythm of her laughter, were now fallen strands. And Angie had deep dark circles around her beautiful blue eyes, and her head was shaved.
This seven years old child had to experience a brain surgery for removing the tumor. The doctors gave her 3% chances of survival, arguing that Angie might not outlive the surgery or that the tumor might not be completely removed and could continue to spread. Little Angie could understand the gravity of the situation and she would say to the nurses and doctors.
“It doesn’t matter what’s gonna be. I’m still good. My mamma said that I’m like the sky. If the sky gets dark, it’s still good, because it’s still the sky, only with another color. And me, I’m still Angie, only that I have no hair in my shinny bold head”.
She was amused by her lack of hair and asked everybody to touch her scalp to see how soft it was. The nurses loved her positive energy and spent a lot of time entertaining her. She got everybody on board with her innocent and candid philosophy of beating cancer and everybody was waiting for a miracle to happen in the day of the surgery.
The small size of the tumor complicated the surgery but again, Angie had an answer for this problem also.
“If it’s like a seed, they will need to put pigeons in my head to find it and eat it. And if it’s bigger, then they will have to bring more pigeons, ha-ha, the pigeons will make me feel better!”
We didn’t give too many details on what was about to happen during the surgery. She had a very good idea of her own about it, anyway.
After 5 hours of cold waiting, the doctor announced that Angie was alive, the tumor removed and that she would still have to go through radiation therapy and chemotherapy to assist the intervention of tumor removal. She would hug the nurses and her doctor every day, asking them to play with her. Angie was back, as lovingly and as joyful as before.
The last year was horrific for Angie, who was about to lose her life to cancer. She did not go to school that year, but she is now preparing to enroll. She keeps inventing stories about why she should stay a little longer in the hospital for playing with the nurses and the doctor, but she is out of danger. The tests revealed that the entire tumor was extracted and that it did not spread. Angie has survived the Big C with candor.
My angel Angie, with her hair growing back, is hilarious as she explains that she is bored, pulling down her 2 cm strands of hair.
