I Fell in Love with Hope - Lancali

My kindness, what fickle pieces of it were left standing, was pulled
out by the roots. For years after, I plunged into a streak of cynicism
and meanness and
the general belief that life was a sort of sick joke and not worth the
ablutions of compassion.
I kept him a secret from everyone, save my mother. Somehow, that
made it feel like I was preserving him. I tended to lie to people who
asked about my past because that’s what children do when they’re
hogging something. He was my first true experience with the kind of
death, and he was my first experience with love, and I wanted him to
remain something of mine. With my adolescence, that compulsion
faded, as grief tends to. My aggressiveness and pessimism were
replaced by a general coldness which I find is just an inherent part of
me that I must accept. I retain my ability to laugh, my ability to
empathize, and more importantly, I learned how to be kind.
Our real story–the thousands of emails we shared, the phone calls,
the moments of laughter, and the stories we wrote one another–do
remain mine.
He and I inspired this story, but ours will always belong to the past,
and to my memory of it as it should.
To the boy who smiled and encouraged me to write, not for the
world, but for myself, you will forever be a part of me. This story and
the characters I described to you over the sound of a heart monitor
and distant workings of the hospital all those years ago have finally
found life. My heart beats with thunder and lightning, and even if it is
weak, it is the one I gave you. It and this story are forever yours as
much as they are mine.
To the reader who trudged through these sometimes tedious,
sometimes heavy pages, my gratitude is not empty. Whatever you
take with you, even if it is a
single line, just know I appreciate the gift you’ve given me.