He took the pen from my hand and started writing on my fingers, showing off his multi-lingual abilities that I was so jealous of. On my palm was written the word ‘love’, on my forefinger was ‘amour’ and on my thumb was ‘liebe.’ These words were decorated with hearts and swirly lines, another strange creation from the mind of my friend. He gave me the pen back after sufficiently filling my hand with graffiti and smiled. His lips were pale, his eyes sunken, and his bald head rested against the pillow. The hospital room was a depressing block of white, so I found his smile and the words on my hand to be a bit more than ironic.
I stared at my decorated palm while we made idle conversation about sports and the weather. Rain outside pounded on his window, leading to a good distraction or the situation at hand. I had been to the hospital since visiting hours began, and the conversation was beginning to drag. We refused to talk about the hospital, the sickness, or the pain in our hearts. I tried to keep from looking at him so I wouldn’t have to see the IVs sticking out of his arms, the mask on his face to help him breathe, the bones poking out of his ribcage. It hurt me to see my best friend so weak. I took his hand, which was cold and sweaty, reminding me of how much pain he must be in. I swallowed hard to keep from sobbing, choking down my tears.
“Be strong, honey,” he instructed me, his own eyes unashamedly filling with tears. "And please, never stop smiling." I forced a half-hearted smile at him, my graffiti filled hand brushing a strand of hair out of his face. We were only eleven years old, but we were growing up fast. We had been since the diagnosis of his brain tumor. The visiting hours were over and KC squeezed my hand, his cheek now wet with tears. I kissed his forehead lightly, an affectionate gesture I don’t repeat with others. He whispered my name before I left the room, climbing into my Aunt’s car, and watching the hospital as long as I could before it disappeared from view. I leaned back in my seat, staring at the words of love written in KC’s handwriting on my palm. I kissed my hand gently as my Aunt tried to lighten the mood. But the pouring rain on the car matched the flow of tears from my cheeks.
That was the last time I saw him. A week later, I was sitting in my bedroom of my Aunt’s house when she came in, tears in her eyes, telling me that KC had finally passed. She told me it was peaceful and reminded me that now he was out of his pain and in a better place. But I was a wreck and nothing could comfort me. I sobbed quietly for days before the funeral, each passing day left less and less of the pen marks on my hand, until they were all but completely faded. When I spoke at his funeral, my voice was shaking and I almost couldn’t get the words out, but on the top of the paper I had written the words 'never forget to smile' in small handwriting, just as KC had told me a few weeks before.
Every time I see these words or hear someone say them, I know that it’s a reminder that KC is there with me, always. To this day, I know to never stop smiling, because I know, to this day, that he is there, watching me and smiling with me. It was his smile that brought us together as friends so long ago, and my smile that has given me so many new friends to honor him with. Occasionally I’ll trace where the words once were written on my palm. They always fade away, but I know he’s never really gone.
