Farewell

Mr. McKenzie 

A man I never knew,

A teacher I never had,

A man loved by many,

Whose years were so few.

Today, during last block, those who were at Sherando learned of Mr. McKenzie's death. Mr. McKenzie was a social studies teacher at Sherando. And now, he is gone. I have no emotional attachment to him whatsoever, but his death is still saddening. It's strange to think that my classmates and I will never see Mr. McKenzie again, right at the end of sociology, and the school day, on Day 2s. It's weird because his classroom is right across from Mr. Walker's and we used to see him every other day. He was there last week and that's part of why it's so shocking. I didn't know him, but I knew of his existence. He was here.

Mr. McKenzie even came into our class one day to help Mr. Walker with a psychology/sociology related experiment. We were supposed to state in detail what Mr. McKenzie had been wearing and what he did while in the room. I don't even remember much anymore. I could have sworn that the tie he was wearing at the time was patterned, but it wasn't. His tie was a plain green. He spoke to one of my classmates, opened the blinds, erased something from the whiteboard, and supposedly saluted before he left the classroom. I'm sure I'm missing something, but I can't remember anything more. 

By 4 o'clock, there were very few people left at school. I feel like that rare occurrence had, in some part, to do with Mr. McKenzie's death. And so the school was deserted, like a ghost town. Even the sky looked gloomy, like it wanted to cry. It's weird to say or think that he is gone. 

I don't know the cause of his death. I've heard rumors all around. Even if those rumors are true, I won't take back these words. I will not be one to judge Mr. McKenzie in who he was and how he lived. That's not my place.

Farewell, Mr. McKenzie. Sherando will miss you. 

May your beautiful soul rest in peace. 

  

Dragonfly Retreat

I just had one of the most amazing weekends of my entire life, one of the best actually. I went to the Dragonfly Heart Camp Retreat at NorthBay in Maryland. I didn't realize that this weekend would make me feel so much better and hopeful. I met other heart transplant recipients, a lung transplant recipient, and pulmonary hypertension patients, in addition to some medical personnel. I thoroughly enjoyed the weekend. I can't even express how amazing it was for me and for my new friends. 

I knew that there were other transplant recipients running around somewhere, but I never could find them...until now. I met people who are more than 5 years out of transplant, even 15 years and more. It was incredible. It gives me hope for the future. I'm not a statistic. No one gets to tell me that because I'm a transplant recipient I'll only live for a certain amount of time, because of the people I met. 

I'm not going to be able to say everything that I want to say, but I'm going to at least try to say some more. I just have so much to say about this weekend. We all learned something and had the chance to discuss a lot of things. It was nice to be around people who understand me because they've been there. They know how it feels and so I don't have to feel alone in the world anymore. I have a strong support team now with people who truly do understand what it's like. This experience has made me stronger. I now take my medicine without my applesauce. I refuse to go back to it because if my friends can take theirs without something like that, then I can too. 

While at camp, I found myself starting to think 'Wow, your life was so much worse than mine,' but then I realized that we've all had it tough and that includes me too. I can't say that their experience is worse than mine or that they feel more pain than I do. We've all had it rough, but it's made us so much stronger and all the more motivated. We are inspirations to each other, because each one of us has fought their own fight and still continues to move on and push for another day to live. We all have a purpose in life. 

Feelings aside, this was an extremely fun filled weekend. There was ziplinig, the swing, rock climbing, indoor bonfires, smores, playing ping pong, table hockey, and pool, and just having fun with each other. The girls and I stayed up the second night to talk. It was a lot of fun. 

My thoughts are all over the place. I really miss camp. I miss my friends. I miss being able to take medicine with other people. I miss doing all of those fun activities. I miss having breakfast, lunch, and dinner together. I miss the story telling and the crafts. I miss everything. And I am a little sad, but I know that I'll see everyone again. Even if I don't, they're always with me because of the special bond we've created. No one can break that. Together, we are stronger. I'm not alone. 

It was a life changing experience.

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"Five heart transplant recipients, ten souls" - Derek 

"Shit's about to hit the fan" - Bre (She said something like this, haha)

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Link to a compilation of pictures and a video from Dragonfly: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ljytvb264JU

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I've dubbed Johns Hopkins as JHOP since Children's Hospital of Philadelphia is shortened to CHOP. :)

Death and Sorrow

The sun is shining outside. There seems to be a slight breeze, but I bet it feels pretty hot anyway. I'm sitting in the living room stealing glances at the trees and the little bits of the sky within my range of vision. I have my thinking face on, which I guess makes me appear sad or troubled because my father always asks me if I'm okay whenever he sees me like this.

I was thinking about death just now. I'm not afraid to die. I've been within the realm of the dying. I want to be able to welcome death when it's time. I could have sworn it was my time to go almost a year ago. To this day though, I'm still dying and so is everyone else around me. From the day we are born, we are dying. Someone once told me something like that. I guess it sounds depressing, but I don't see it that way.

If you had the power to bring back the dead, would you? I think I would want to, but I would never be able to bring myself to do it. Bringing the dead back seems cruel in a way. The dead need to be left alone. Ah, I don't sound like my "normal" self right now. I've gone out of it, but let me continue and see where I go.

Can you see sorrow in the eyes of others? I can't. People seem to find hidden sorrow lingering in mine.  When people find sorrow, they wonder what the cause is, what the reason is. Very few care to bother finding out. And the ones that do find out, they forget and push it to the back of their mind or out of their mind. They don't ask questions. They don't try to comfort you. They go back to normal because your loss has nothing to do with them. At the same time though, each person faces their own struggles so the other person can't truly be blamed. We all live different lives. We all have different struggles. We can only be there for each other so much.

Thinking of Death

Another day of summer has passed. I've had a pretty awesome week so far, but I've been feeling kind of off. I don't feel like myself. I've been quite happy for the past few days and I've had a lot of fun, but there's something that I can't seem to shake from my mind: DEATH. (Yes, I felt it was necessary to put in all caps.)

I can't understand why I've been thinking about death, especially when I haven't been upset or afraid. Thinking about death doesn't necessarily mean that a person is depressed or scared, because I've been perfectly content for some time now. Sure, I've been bored, but not unhappy. The reason I find this sudden contemplation of death to be so odd is because my mind wandered to it when I was in a good mood, when I was happy.

On Monday, June 25th, I had an amazing afternoon. I was so cheerful during that time and yet death was on my mind at one point. I didn't feel lonely or broken. The people who were around me had nothing to do with what I was thinking. They never said a word concerning the matter, at least not that I can remember. Why was I thinking about death in the company of those two people? Those two who will never fully understand what they, among a handful of others, helped give back to me...why around them? 

I'm not surprised or shocked to be thinking about death. Actually, it seems very fitting according to events that have occurred recently. Though I can't answer my previous question, I believe I know why Death has decided to take up residence in my mind. Due to all of the fun I've been having and how everything has seemingly returned to whatever normal was and is, I seem to be forgetting the friend I almost met. 

Two sides of the same coin

The words that I say now will undoubtedly sound ridiculous to me later, seeing as I am writing this post past 1 in the AM. I needed to let this out though. This is subject to being deleted at a later time.