It is about two years ago now, it was in my autumn Holliday. And I had to go into hospital. I was in a big depression and I needed help. And in the hospital I could have comfort and somebody who was there when I needed somebody to talk to.  At the hospital my psychologist talked to me to hours a day, which made me very tired. So I was not so social, the only thing I was doing was to sit in my hospital bed with plastic sheets, and read. After several books and magazines I was a kind of bored. So I began to go out of my own room, at the children’s space at the hospital there where a big room with toys and games and cartoons.

Children was playing all around and worried parents where looking every step they took. Nurses went in and out of the room

And there I met a girl. Her name was Linda and she had just arrived at the hospital. Linda had Leukaemia her hair was short and her face was pale, but she was smiling. She was always smiling. 

It was great to finally have someone else to talk to except my psychologist and Linda was about my age, she was 17. We sat and ate breakfast together every morning and sometimes we went outside the hospital for an hour ore two. One day when we went out we went to a bride saloon and she told me about her dreams, we sat on a bench and saw white dresses behind the glass windows. Linda got her disease when she was 15, and she had to travel to the big hospitals to get her treatments and medicine, she did not have contact with here friends for a long time and suddenly she did not no them any more. And she told me about the problems in her family. Her mom and dad had divorced, but they felt they had to hold on because of her.  She hated to see them suffer, and they did not find any comfort in each other. And Linda’s sister was the only grownup right then even tough she was the youngest. 

One day, I did finally met Linda’s sister, the girl she was talking so much about. She looked a bit like Linda, but she did not smile. It was something sad in her eyes. But some how I could not catch what it was back then.

The holiday was over, I was still at the hospital, but I did go to school, I felt a little better as the days went by, and when the second day at school was finished and I walked into the room where I was going to eat my dinner, it was nobody there. One of the nurses came and told me that Linda had to go to another hospital. Her body had taken up the leukaemia again.

I taught it was very sad, and I did not know how to contact her again, I only knew her first name. but I did almost forget her, I had so much to think about myself. I did get out of the hospital, I was feeling much better, I had moved to a new home. And I had many good friends and had always something to do.

One day I was visiting the hospital and I went to the nurses who I knew, and they handed over a picture to me. It was Linda, her short hair was a bit longer, and she was wearing a wedding dress and she was smiling. The well-known smile I used to smile back at. I could see at the picture that she was not quite well, she was thin and pale and had slurry eyes but still she had the happiest eyes I ever seen. I asked if I could have the picture, and the nurse said yes.

Sometimes I take up the picture and look at it. And I sit there with so many questions and no answers. What is she doing now? Did she marry someone? Is she still alive?

I don’t know anything about Linda anymore, but actually I don’t want to know! As long as I remember her, remembering her smile, and the way she loved life, its good enough for me. Her smile sits in my memory for ever. And her rules about living; I follow them.