Do you know what mankind’s biggest mistake is? No? I’m not surprised. Most people don’t know that answer till it’s almost too late to matter anymore. We spend our whole lives missing out on that answer. We take it for granted. Any idea yet what that mistake is? Mankind’s biggest mistake is never really noticing what the magic of every day is, the gift of simply being alive.
It’s our greatest miracle, our most beautiful gift. Yet we never really understand that till the gift begins to fade. We miss the joys of stunning sunrises, the beauty of a child’s smile, the magic in a song. We never notice the beat of a hummingbird’s wings, the budding of a wild flower, the wisdom of youth, the nativity of age, the laughter in a dance, the trust in a smile.
Life gives these incredible gifts and the real tragedy of it all is that sometimes we never even knew we had them. It’s like holding a diamond but never knowing it was in your hand. Only life is worth more than all the diamonds ever made. Life, for all the pain it ever gives you, for all the tears it makes you cry, for all the loneliness and fear it makes you feel it will always be your greatest gift. It will also always be the one you take for granted.
My life thus far as been my gift for nineteen years. Most would say at that age my life hasn’t even begun. I know something most don’t though. I know every tiny miracle in being alive. I’ve seen more magic in my nineteen years than people three times my age. My secret in life, the one I’m trying so hard to share with the world is this. For every detail you take for granted, for every detail you never notice it is one less star you carry with you to heaven.
My name is Riley O’Brien and I have a brain tumor. I’m not dying though. To say I’m dying implies I am lying down and giving up and that’s far from the truth. I don’t know how much more time I have to live this gift I was given but I’m going to spend every moment of it exploring the secrets it is willing to share with me.
I’ve seen the world twice now, been to cities people have never heard of, dance in the rain, sang with a group of children, talked to a million strangers as if they were my best friends, and felt the sun beat down on me and the snow wrap around me. I have done things that never occurred to me until I found out my time was limited and maybe that too was a gift to me. It made me realize what all I hadn’t seen in life, everything I hadn’t stopped to look at.
My parents are devastated, my sister appalled of how I choose to live now, and I am simply living. I’ve done so much, but I have missed out on two things in my life. They are two of the things I most wanted to experience. Of all my joys and wonders I have never been a lover or a mother and those are the two that I longed for the most. I don’t regret not being either one because I still have a chance but I’m also not going through my life looking for a man to marry me and get me pregnant. Before my gift ends I want to know what it is like to be loved and to love with every single breath in my soul, but I will not cheat myself or my life in settling for the first man that looks at me
My life may end tomorrow or it may yet end in three years. No one really knows. I live through the symptoms and I embrace what I never held on to before.
Right now I call home Orlando, Florida. It’s a tiny apartment with not much in it, but it’s home now because when I fall asleep at night it is there that I lay my head and it is there that I will lay my head till I lay it down for the last time.
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