Amber Liu never thought she'd experience the pain and heartache she'd gone through in her life.

 

Her life had been pretty normal, and she had been a generally healthy child until she got to middle school and reached the age of thirteen.

 

That's when the symptoms started, and her life took a turn for the worse.

 

At first, she didn't really think anything of the frequent abdominal pain she felt because she had thought they were just stomach aches.

 

When she started loosing weight without trying and throwing up everything she ate, which was little because she seemed to get full easily, her parents made the decision to take her to the to the local hospital across town.

 

When they had taken that stressful trip to the doctor those seemingly long three years ago, she had never expected her diagnoses to be as serious as it turned out to be.

 

After a long wait and many trying tests, she was diagnosed with stomach cancer.

 

At the time, she could only wonder why it had to be her. She wondered why it had to be her cells to grow abnormally and why God had chosen this path for her.

As time went on though, she realized she was just one of seven billion people in the world, and she guessed that it was better for her to have the disease rather than someone who would actually change the world someday, and make a difference to other people's lives.

 

 

As years went by, she went through months of fear and agonizingly painful and slow treatments. From chemo therapy to radiation, she'd had it all and just when the cancer would always seem to be disappearing and get better, she'd relapse and would be back to square one.

 

Her parents never gave up on her. No matter how many financial difficulties and other problems her parents went through, they refused to give up trying for their only daughter.

 

They called her their miracle child.

 

About every doctor had told her mom that she wouldn't be able to have children, but they never gave up.

 

Then finally, after a long wait, Amber Josephine Liu came into their lives and brightened their worlds.

 

 

After finding out she had cancer, she had done lot of things to make up for the time that she didn't know if she'd have or not later in life. She had made a long bucket list of things that she always wanted to do. She went to places like Disneyland and Disney World, concerts she'd always wanted to go to ranging from all genres, even met celebrities that she never thought she'd be in the presence of, but she realized it all just didn't matter.

 

As time went on, she noticed that there wasn't a point.

There was happiness at the time, but the things she did would never be for the long term.

 

The joy she had felt at in those moments was just an excuse to not focus on the bigger picture.

The memories would stick with her for as long as she would live, but they weren't life changing.

They weren't situations that would suddenly bring her life to a new light.

Those experiences, were just experiences, times in life that were fun at the time, but weren't making a big difference to her life or someone else.  

 

 

Even though she had done all those things, there was still stuff she wished she had accomplished, or would get to do later in life, but knew she wouldn't. One thing she thought about is the fact that she'd never get married or have children.

 

She'd never get to meet her future husband, have the experience of getting engaged to, or have the chance to walk down the isle with her dad.

She also wasn't even positive that she wanted children, but the choice that she would have liked to have isn't even within her reach anymore. Experiences like giving birth, watching her children grow up and support them as they followed the paths they wanted to take were situations she would never get to experience.

 

Amber also regretted never saying things she needed to say.

She once had an uncle who also had cancer and was never really been close to him, but had always wished she had been. She use to hear her family talk about him all the time.

There were so many fond memories of how much of a great person he was that she never experienced, or could join in and share about.

Every time her family talked about him, the regret of never interacting with him when she'd had the chance rose up a little more each time. 

 

When she considered things like that, she also wondered if things she regretted were what other people would when she was gone.

She wondered if there was anything anyone wanted to tell her, or that they wished they had done something for her before her time started running out.  

If there were any words, phrases, or simple gestures that were meant to be done or said, but just never had the chance to be said to her.

She didn't even care if they were good or bad, she just wanted them to reach her, so people wouldn't experience the same regret she did when she also disappeared from earth.

 

Thinking about that made her think about her friends Sulli and Krystal and how they were doing.

She knew they were probably at school, starting first period and wondering where she was. She thought that maybe she should have had her parents call someone at the school to notify her friends that she was at the hospital, but didn't want to ruin their day.

 

Sulli and Krystal had always been optimistic about her recovering through the years and she would have rather not seen their looks of despair if she died in front of them.

Sulli was just so kind and warmhearted while Krystal was they type of person that could just smile and brighten your day.

They were the only two people who had actually stayed friends with her through the years.

They even helped her after chemo sessions and stayed home from school with her to help her through the pain while also trying to cheer her up. All of her other “friends” had suddenly stopped hanging out with her the moment she lost her hair after starting chemo.

It had been hard for her at first, but as time went on, she realized that it was better for her to have people in her life that actually cared about her instead of people that were there for materialistic reasons.

   

Now as she lied in her hospital bed in the cancer unit of the hospital, waiting for the doctors to come in and finally get the courage to tell her the news, she couldn't really bring herself to cry about what she already knew was about to come.

 

She just felt emotionless.

She couldn't bring herself to feel the despair her parents were clearly trying to hide from her across the room, or pity herself like some of the nurses and doctors were doing to her outside as they passed her hospital room, probably all told what happened to her the night before.

Some of them probably even knew how much time she had left on this earth.

 

She'd been sleeping when in the middle of the night, she was awaken by an intense pain in her stomach.

Since her parents had put a baby monitor in her room for times like that, they heard her screaming and rushed into her room. She had been in pain before, but never like how she'd experienced the night before.

The pain had been so intense that it blurred her vision, and made her stomach empty its contents from the day's earlier meals all over the floor next to her bed.

The acrid and pungent smell of stomach acid and nearly digested foods had filled her bedroom, making her dry heave even more as she hunched over in pain and tears.

Her parents had tried getting her to stand and walk to the car, but as soon as she tried uncurling herself from the ball she'd put herself in, the pain intensified horribly, making her double over onto the floor next to the food from earlier that day that she'd thrown up.

After that, her parents had just called an ambulance, and that's how she ended up where she was now, at the hospital with tubes running through various parts of her body.

 

 

She'd still been deep in thought about last night when a doctor finally came in and closed the door behind him with papers in hand.

 

Her parents and her, who had been sitting in silence, all looked up at him, and waited for him to tell them the news. She already had the feeling that her time was about to be up for the past week, even before the incident the night before, but wanted to see what the doctor would say first.

 

 

After standing there and looking at them sadly, he finally just told them what they had already expected.

 

The cancer had spread through all parts of her body and there was no way to save her.

 

She looked at her parents to see pain spread across their faces, but still, the tears that they wanted to shed never left their eyes.

 

She wanted to thank her parents for that. No matter how much the things that happened to her hurt them, they'd never show it to her.

 

They tried so many times to put smiles on their faces through all of those times, and still did it today even though their only daughter and miracle child was about to leave their lives.

The doctor then turned to her parents and had the sign the finalization papers, papers that would finally end the pain she had gone through for so many years.

 

After they signed them, the doctor had a group of other doctors and nurses come in to be there for her last breath.

 

She guessed it was nice.

 

She was glad that there were people besides her parents here to support her on her last day.

 

She turned around to look at her parents who had moved to stand on each side of her bed.

 

She gripped their hands with tears forming in her eyes.

 

 

The only thing they did was squeeze her hands tighter and as the doctors took out her IVs the last thing she saw were her parents smiling at her as she faded away.