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Jess
by Isaiah S

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This narrative is in loving memory of Jessica Gale Ship. About two months before I was born, my sister Jessica learned that she had been diagnosed with cancer. That is very hard to face when you have a whole life ahead of you. That included a little 5 year old son. That bad news came to her in August 1996, two months later in October, I was born. Then on June 1997, Joey, Jessica's son who recently turned 6 years old that May, just finished Kindergarten and was having a ceremony to mark the occasion. Jessica, despite being severely ill at the time managed to get to it in a wheelchair and with an oxygen tank and also a wig (because of cancer), she had beautiful brown hair; everyone that knew her tells me that she was a true beauty. Just stop to think how you would feel if in less than a year, all of your health was burnt to ashes and you had to live out the remainder of your life in a hospital bed, with nothing more to do than to count the tiles on the depressing floor. I don't know about you, but I think it would be torture. It was torture to Jessica's loved ones too. The next month, in July, Jessica passed away I think that is the real definition of a hero, someone brave enough to stare death in the face or to shelter a family. She did both.