Sadness. It was all I felt. Looking at the room around me filled with the machines keeping me alive, with their continuous beeping and sterile smells, alongside the few loved ones I had, knowing that soon I was going to die. The only thought in my mind is that no parent should see their child die before them. Turning my head around to gaze at my mom and dad, Cheral and Steve Barnes, I began to sob. “I’m sorry. I am so sorry.”
The reason I was dying was not my fault, it was nobody's fault, but I still felt sorry for what my parents would have to go through after I was gone. I was dying from cancer, more specifically cardiac sarcoma, cancer of the heart. It has been a long time coming, and I thought I was prepared for this.
Turns out that I was not.
Things were getting worse and worse lately, chest pain, fatigue, and most of all fear and guilt. Fear of knowing the end is near and fear about what is after the end.
I had heard from many about “Acceptance,” and I tried my best to tell myself that it would be okay, but I am not religious, so in my mind there is nothing after my end and the fear of what comes after gnaws at every fiber of my being.
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The guilt of leaving behind my family is the worst of all. Even though I know it is not my fault, I still feel guilty about how my parents are going to have to live with the loss of their only child at the early age of 23, something no parent should ever have to go through. The money spent to keep me comfortable in these last few months had not been cheap and I knew it. My mom and dad were not poor, but we were certainly not well off.
Suddenly my uncle Shane walks up to the side of the hospital bed and places his hand on mine. My uncle is my dad’s brother. He has always been there for me when growing up and was honestly like a second dad. He worked with my dad at a construction company building new homes. He looks at me with sorrow and leans in close and whispers in my ear “I will make sure they are okay; you do not need to worry about their future.” I look at him and he looks at me straight in the eyes. I have never seen such a look of determination, understanding, and sorrow all at once. Never in my life had my uncle ever looked like this. He was always the kind of person who joked and brought people together.
Suddenly and without warning something began to resound deep within me, something that I had been told about for years and something I never thought I would have.
Acceptance.
Like a weight had been lifted my time came towards its end. I laid there, still tears in my eyes but finally tears of acceptance. I looked around the room one last time as I slowly started to close my eyes and saw for the last time my parents, my uncle, and all life as I had known it finally ended.