Amy

When I was about four years old, my family moved from the inner city of Minneapolis to a northern suburb. It was about six months before I was to start kindergarten and I was to have a new baby brother or sister at any time. When the baby came in the middle of February, I was instantly the hit of the neighborhood. Everyone wanted to come and see my new little brother. Initially, I hated it, but it was a great icebreaker and I met a lot of new friends that first winter.

My first best friend was a girl named Amy. Amy was beautiful. She had shiny chocolate brown hair and eyes to match. Her skin was like a porcelain dolls. She was fair, but had just the right amount of pink to brighten her cheeks.

Amy had five sisters and three brothers. They were your typical Catholic family. In fact, Amy’s mother taught phy. ed. at the nearby Catholic school that eventually we would both attend. Every summer, because Amy’s mom was off during the summer, they would go “up north” to their cabin and spend the entire summer there. For most of my childhood, I can recall that as it got toward the end of the summer I would ask my mom everyday, “Mom, is Amy coming home today?” “Mom, is Amy coming home today?” “MOM, IS AMY COMING HOME TODAY?” Until I am sure she wanted to pull both her and my hair out.

Amy’s house was up a large hill in our backyard and on the day that she was to come home, I would sit in the backyard on my swingset and I would watch up the hill. I must have looked pathetic. Just sitting there, forlornly looking up the hill waiting for their car to pull in the drive way and for the kids to start spilling out. When it happened, I swear it was pure bliss. I would run screaming up the hill, “Amy’s home! Amy’s home!” She would come towards me screaming my name, too. We would meet somewhere in the middle and wrap our arms around each other and spin around in a circle until we would fall down and roll over and over the rest of the way down the hill.

We grew up together and yes, we fought at times, but she was my best friend and we had a lot of good times together, too. When I was in fourth grade, I moved away and although we still went to the same school, she was a year younger than me, so we didn’t see each other very much. Our moms were friends so we would sometimes get together and play and other times her older sisters would babysit me and my brothers, so I would get to see her then.

One morning in December, when I was in ninth grade, during the morning announcements in school, they asked everyone to keep a fellow student in their prayers. They didn’t mention any names, but when our homeroom classes were dismissed and we were passing to our first classes, I heard people whispering and saying things like, “Did you hear…?” and “I know, can you believe it?” When I got to my music class, I finally was able to find someone who knew what was going on and she said, “Mrs. B’s daughter, Amy, has leukemia.” At that moment, I must have looked like I had leukemia myself because I am sure that all of the blood drained from my body and I felt like I was a thin piece of paper standing there. I left the room and went to the pay phone where I called my mom and told her. We both cried. My mom promised to call Mrs. B and find out what the whole story was and she would fill me in after school. Apparently, Amy had gotten sick and when she didn’t get better like she should have, her mom brought her to the doctor. With a bone marrow transplant, she had about a 75% survival rate.

The school year went on and as we prepared for our spring concert, Amy struggled with leukemia and trying to get into remission so that she could have her BMT. For our spring concert, three girls from Amy’s grade were going to sing The Hands of Time (Brian’s Song)*. After the concert, Amy came up (she was wearing a mask so that she wouldn’t get sick) and spoke to the three classmates who had sung Brian’s Song. I walked over and stood behind her so that I could speak to her when she was done talking to her friends. I didn’t wait long because as soon as I walked up, it was almost like she sensed me there and she turned around and wrapped me up in her arms and we both cried.

That summer, Amy didn’t go to her cabin for the summer. Instead she spent it at UofM Oncology ward getting ready for and receiving her BMT. I visited her as much as I could. On one particular visit, we had a long conversation about friendship and love and being afraid to show one another the way we feel. When I left that day, Amy kissed me and told me that she loved me. She was wiser and knew more than I did that day and probably even more than I do now. We spoke a few times on the phone after that day but I didn’t get to see her again until a couple days after my birthday (July 24) when her mom called my mom and told her that Amy wasn’t doing well. She had developed graft vs. host disease and she probably wasn’t going to live much longer.

My mom and dad drove me as fast as they could to the hospital. It was the longest 30 minutes of my life. When we got there, all of Amy’s family were there and most of them were gathered in her room around her bed. Amy couldn’t speak, but with a psychologist, a series of questions and signals from her they had determined that she was ready to let go. My parents and I spent the next several hours visiting with her family and spending time with Amy. When my parents thought that it was time to leave, they told me so and I begged them to let me stay. With the okay from Amy’s parents, mine left me there and went home. I spent the night talking with Amy’s siblings, holding her hand, rubbing lotion into her feet and sleeping in a chair next to her bed with my shoulders hunched over and my head just inches from hers on the pillow.

In the morning, we could tell that the time was getting closer and her family and I gathered around her bed. We sang. We sang hymns. We sang nursery rhymes. We sang campfire songs. We sang Kumbayah, My Lord. We sang You are My Sunshine, a song that she had taught me years before. At a few minutes past 10:30 that morning, we sang her to Heaven. It was one of the saddest and most beautiful moments of my life. As she slipped away, we were all crying and I whispered, “Amy’s home.”

*The Hands of Time (Brian’s Song)

If the hands of time were hands that I could hold,

I�d keep them warm and in my hands,

They�d not turn cold!

Hand in hand we�d choose the moments that should last,

The lovely moments that should have no future and no past!

The summer from the top of a swing,

The comfort and the sound of a lullaby,

The innocence of leaves in the spring,

But most of the moment when love first touched me!

All the happy days would never learn to fly,

Until the hands of time would choose to wave good-bye!

The innocence of leaves in the spring,

But most of the moment when love first touched me!

All the happy days would never learn to fly,

Until the hands of time would choose to wave good-bye!

~ theme from the television special “Brian’s Song”
Music by Michel Legrand with lyrics by Marilyn and Alan Bergman

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