I went to my first job interview ever today! It's for a company which leases babysitters to families a couple of nights a week, and I'm quite excited. It did feel like it went pretty well, so I am really hoping to get the job as a professional babysitter (haha)! The extra money will be welcome, with SEK120/h, at least three hours a night. Nice.
I'm also guaranteed a job in the municipality, working at a café, vending tickets and working with stage thingies. The salary's half the babysitter job, but I am sure of getting 100 working hours in a month. SEK6720, yes please. But I haven't accepted the offer yet, since I'm waiting for the announcements of the summer entrepreneur thing the municipality has got going. During three weeks, you get classes in starting your own business (why enjoy my summer holiday when I can take the exact same classes as I do in high school?) and actually starting one! I'm really psyched and I do hope there's a place for me. I'll probably say no to the café job if I get the entrepreneur offer, even though that's guaranteed money. Gosh, hard decisions.
Enough about my job thoughts. That's nothing, thinking of what my friend Christopher is going through.
We were classmates through 7-9th grade, we weren't the closest friends you've seen but, you know, we spoke to each other. Joked. Consider each other as friends. The day after the winter holiday last year, in the beginning of our last term before high school, our mentor walked in and told the class that Christopher had cancer. An
aggressive tumour somewhere in his nose, and one in his throat. It's a very rare type of cancer, and luckily, three out of four gets the mildest form. Christopher wasn't one of those three.
He was put on cytotoxin and chemo therapy for the whole year, and in the end of 2013 he went through a stemcell transplantation. The doctors told him he needed to be home for 3-6 months, and then hopefully the throat and nose tumours wouldn't come back. And they haven't.
Yesterday, I watched the Swedish film "I taket lyser stjärnorna", about Jenna, whose mother has got cancer. I thought about Christopher and decided to write to him. I've contacted him a dozen of times since we finished school in June. I just wanted to hear that he was okay, that he would be allowed to go out in a month or so, that high school was going well. But he didn't tell me that. Instead, I got to know that they have found another tumour in his body, in one of his vertebras. He's on medication again.
All I could think of was uncureable skeleton cancer, funerals, the fact that Christopher might not be alive for his seventeenth birthday. I sent him a quite long text telling him that I wished him the best of luck, that I was sending him my dearest thoughts. Then, I just sat down and stared in front of me. My mother came inside, and it was when I told her - "they've found another tumour in Christopher" - everything fell apart. I cried, and cried, and cried, unable to do anything. It is so unfair that someone so young has to fight for life. I cried, and my mother did nothing. She said "oh no, really? That's horrible" and walked away. Left me crying. I cannot understand why she did that. Couldn't she handle it herself? She didn't know Christopher. She's a nurse. I'm her daughter. I needed someone to hold me, to hug me tight, to wipe my tears. But she just left. And now I'm crying again.
I'm thinking of you, Christopher. Thinking, praying, hoping. You're so strong and I know really hope that you'll find your way out of this. ♥
A sixteen years old boy shouldn't be fighting for his life. He should fall in love, go to parties, watch movies, play football, argue with his parents, go to school. He shouldn't be losing his hair, nor his life spark.
If I could change anything in the world, I would take away cancer. I don't care about wars or world hunger or malaria; cancer is such an evil disease that noone deserves to go through. Especially not a young boy who barely has seen the world.
