I was in the hospital searching for my dad. Feeling scared and anxious, I ran. I ran in the hallways, I ran up the stairs, I ran to the room. It wasn’t easy for me to accept the news about my father being in a critical condition during surgery.
Searching for room 216, I held back my tears and tried to stay as positive as I could. Thinking about all the negative possibilities wouldn’t help me now.
Passing by a room, I hear a guy scream in pain. I took a quick glance into the room and saw doctors and nurses pinning a guy down on his bed to inject him. Out of breath, he stared at the door after taking his shot. I quickly turn on my heels and continued searching for my dad’s room when he noticed me peeking.
I rushed to my brother when I saw him outside of the room, pacing back and forth. He gave me a quick hug and said, “Hey, mom is talking to the doctor. They should be out in a minute.” I nodded and sat silently on the chair that was against the wall. My brother joined me but we didn’t sit for long.
The doctor came out, gave us a nod and continued his way down the hall. Our legs automatically made their way into the room with full speed and we caught up with mom. Turns out, dad’s body wasn’t reacting normally towards the sedation but the doctor managed to stabilize him. All we have to do now is to wait for him to wake up. We stayed for a bit to accompany mom who’s been here since early morning.
"Did you guys hear about Karen's son? He's just a few rooms away. Leg cancer. Poor kid," my mom told us while biting her nails. She does that when she's nervous.
"Well, should we pay him a visit? I mean, we haven't met him before but Karen is a nice lady. It’s the least we could do," my brother said and stood up from the couch.
Karen was my mom's colleague. They’ve worked together for years and is probably one of the oldest staffs they’ve got in the company.
Walking to the room, I had a strange feeling that it was going to be the room with the screaming dude. How awkward would it be to pay a visit to a stranger with whom you’ve just had awkward eye contact? And as it turned out, it really was “screaming dude’s” room. I hid behind my brother’s shoulders as he knocked and entered the room. I was a little scared.
“Hi, I’m Oliver and this is Leah. Um… Karen, your mom, is friends with our mom, and we’ve known Karen for years so we just thought we’d come to pay you a visit…” my brother trailed off his words with awkward hand gestures.
I tip-toed a little to look over my brother’s shoulders. I saw “screaming dude” restless on his bed, sitting in an upright position but looking barely energetic. He didn’t look like he was dying or sick, just helplessly tired and out of breath. All he did was stare at us with his tired eyes.
“Maybe we should come back later, Oli,” I whispered to my brother. I felt bad that we visited him unannounced, catching him at his worst time.
“Hi,” I heard “screaming dude” say softly from his bed. He took another deep breath before saying, “I’m Aiden.”
Aiden’s story was the first I’ve ever heard. He got his left leg amputated due to Osteosarcoma, a common bone cancer in young adults. A week before his big football game, he was diagnosed with Osteosarcoma and was stripped away of his dreams of representing his school for the game. Now, he’s just receiving continual treatment for the cancer.
The three of us were quick to become friends. My brother and I would often pay him a visit after we visited our dad. It was fun to keep Aiden company because he had a natural humorous charisma. What more, he was just around our age. The friendship basically pieced itself together.
In every visit to Aiden’s ward, I always looked forward to his drawings. Aiden loved to draw and he would draw rando sketches on the places he’s visited, all by memory. There was Amsterdam, San Francisco, Greece and many others that I’ve yet to see. He limits me to only one art piece a day.
I guess you could say my friendship with Aiden slowly grew to a special kind of connection. Every glance that we took of each other made us smile shyly. Our eyes would tend to find their way to meet each other, then breaking away after 5 seconds. Would you call it sparks? ‘Cause I would.
A day before my dad was discharged, I went to accompany Aiden for one last time. As usual, he let me see one drawing from his sketchbook. But because it was my last visit, he let me see more than one. As I turned a page, he stopped me halfway and turned to another.
“That one’s private,” he chuckled softly.
“Would you watch this with me?” He requested and lifted up a DVD of Dear John. Who could turn down a classic romance film?
Two hours pass by and the movie comes to an end. I was feeling heavy-hearted because it meant that my visit for the day would be over. I turned towards Aiden and found him asleep. That’s good, I guess. It would make saying “goodbye” a little easier.
I quietly stowed away his table and kept his sketchbook in the drawer beside him.
“Bye Aiden,” I whispered softly as I rubbed his thumb lightly.
As I headed towards the door, I heard his voice call out to me saying, “Write to me. Even if we’re far away, please write to me.”
