How Second-Hand Smoke Murdered My Best Friend

A Narrative Essay (Memior)




"So, what should we do today?" Michael asked me.
"I don't know," I replied. "We can't continue our adventure without Cheryl-Jean."
"I wonder why she isn't in school," Michael replied. "Oh well. We'll just have to play with someone else today. What about Pat or Chris?"
"Hmmm…. Pat," I decided. Cheryl-Jean would always be in school tomorrow. We would just have to wait until then to continue our "adventure"; that is, the never-ending games of pretend we would play, just the three of us usually, but sometimes joined by one or two others.
But there was a problem. She wasn't in school the next day, or the day after that. In fact, she was out of school for a month. It was about a week or two after the initial absence that my mom told me Cheryl-Jean had a disease called cancer. Of course, being nine years old, I had no clue what cancer was. I figured she meant the astrological sign. No, that wasn't it, my mom told me. Cancer was a very bad illness. Cheryl-Jean would require special treatments, and would no longer be attending school every day. She would be very weak, and not feeling to well, until she was better. She was not contagious, however, so she would be able to attend school whenever she felt well enough to.
I explained things to Michael.
"My mom told me that stuff, too," he replied.
"Oh? I hope she's not out for too long. We have to finish the game."
"She'll be better soon. No one can be sick for more than two weeks."
"Yeah. I'll be visiting her today."
"Cool. Tell her I said hi!"
As I said before, being nine years old, we had no idea about how terrible cancer really was. When I saw Cheryl-Jean that day, she looked completely different.
"She has no hair!" I told Michael the next day.
"No hair? What do you mean?" he asked.
"It all fell out!"
"No… that's crazy. Hair doesn't fall out."
"She said it did. She said the treatments for the cancer did it."
"Why would they do that?"
"I don't know. She said it needed to make her hair fall out to cure her."
"She's not better yet?"
"No… She looks horrible, too. She's very weak, and has trouble breathing."
"Why can't she breathe? Was she exercising?"
"No… she said the cancer was in her lungs."
"In her lungs?! Cancer can be in different places?"
"I guess so."
"Well, she better be better soon. It's almost summer!"
She did get a little better that summer. Just a little. She was able to have us visit her more often, and even could go outside. But the first few times I noticed something odd about her house. By the third time, I knew what it was; there was no smoke. Her parents had stopped smoking. That was why it seemed so different. Before, I could barely breathe with all the smoke. I would always want to play outside. That day, we were inside, playing her Nintendo 64. It wasn't until five years later that I realized why they had stopped smoking: second-hand smoke was the cause of Cheryl-Jean's cancer.
Even though she seemed to be improving over the summer, Cheryl-Jean still did not come to school in September. Occasionally, she would come to visit, but she never attended classes. The teachers would come to her house and home school her. She did visit as often as she could, though: always with a hat on, to hide her wispy hair. She had lost a lot of weight, too, giving her the appearance of a skeleton with skin.
Cheryl-Jean was liked by pretty much everyone she met. As my best friend, Michael, puts it: "She was like the ideal person that had no faults... Smart, funny, and she was friends with nearly everyone in our grade." And perfect she was. She got straight A's, just like me; she had achieved a black belt in Tai-Kwon-Do; and everyone, it seemed, was her friend. Sure, she mostly spent recess and classes with me and Michael, but she could literally walk up to any group and instantly fit in. She was great at everything she did: Sports, Videogames, English, Science, and though she struggled a tiny bit with Math, she still managed to get A's. Her personality seemed almost magical, as well. She was cheerful, though a bit quiet, and extremely bright.
Then, she was put in the hospital. I visited her a few times. It seemed like such a sad place; there were little sectioned-off areas, one for each bed. Down the hall, there was a playroom. There were a few children in there, but most of them were in their beds, watching TV or visiting with family. Cheryl-Jean was one of those kids, too weak to move. I gave her a Pokemon card that I had spent a few hours making myself: it wasn't very good, but it's the thought that counts. Her mom sent me a thank you card, for coming to visit. She said Cheryl-Jean loved the card.
A week later, as I was going to sleep, the phone rang. Odd. Not many people called that late at night. I shrugged and tried to sleep: it was most likely grandma calling about some show on TV.
After the call, my mom came upstairs. She sat on the edge of my bed, crying.
"What's wrong?" I asked. Mom had never cried before, or at least not that I knew of, anyway.
For a minute, she seemed at a loss for words. Then, she finally brought herself to say it. "Cheryl-Jean died," she choked.
I didn't reply. This was foreign to me.
"She died today, just a little while ago," she continued.
"Okay," I replied, not sure what to make of the situation. Mom was extremely upset, but I had no real concept of what dying meant.
I continued life as normal. It felt weird, like Cheryl-Jean hadn't really died. I kept thinking she would come visit the school again, just as she always had. But she never did. I never saw her again.
At the funeral, I watched as the coffin came down the aisle, as the priest said prayers. I noticed that almost everyone from my grade was there. But it was too quiet; no one made a sound, not even the little children. Church was never this quiet; there was always a baby crying, or people whispering. Mom said she had gone to the viewing beforehand, but she didn't want me to go. She had dad bring me to the church after the viewing, during the funeral.
After the ceremony, we went to the church's banquet hall, where refreshments were being served. People were going up to a stage and saying things about Cheryl-Jean. Her parents, and the rest of the adults, were all in tears; the other children and I were all just standing dumbfounded this whole thing unfathomable, so we started talking about video games and such. Michael wasn't there: he was on a trip to Florida. I wasn't nearly as sociable with people, so I just listened in on the kids' conversations. The adults just kept telling them to be quiet.
Cancer. It killed my best friend. No, scratch that: smoking killed her. Her parents were heavy smokers, and it led to Cheryl-Jean's death. Just as it nearly killed my grandma, who thankfully survived. Second hand smoke, both cases. Yet some people still smoke around others, without a care in the world. It makes me sick. Do they even realize that their smoke can affect the people around them? What about their children, friends, or relatives? Cancer is what can come of smoking: not just any cancer, but a specific type called Leukemia: cancer of the lungs.
If Cheryl-Jean's parents hadn't smoked, things would be different. Cheryl-Jean would still be here. Sometimes, I wonder what sort of person she would be, if she were in high school with me now. No doubt she would still be my friend: after all, she was the perfect match for Michael and me then, so why wouldn't she be now?
I miss Cheryl-Jean. She was like an angel. Maybe she was; maybe that's why she had to die. Maybe she was just too perfect to be part of the human world. But that's cruel, isn't it? No, something evil killed her. Something called second-hand smoke.