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The 4th "It's Always Something"
Teen Writing Contest was a banner year. Teen Program Manager,
Nicole Milan Tyner, reached high schools throughout southern New
Jersey to encourage students to write about their cancer experience
and 100 teens responded from 19 schools.
Congratulations to this year’s winners!
Poetry
1st Place: Steven Layton, Cumberland Regional High School
2nd Place: Katie Rha, Mainland Regional High School
3rd Place: April Tamburo, Absegami High School
Essay
1st Place: Kristen Valenti, Cherokee High School
2nd Place: Bryan Williamson, Egg Harbor Township High School
3rd Place: Jessica Wright, Seneca High School
Thanks to
this year’s judges who took the time to read all the entries:
Abby Hickerson, Dolly Rudloff, Emari DiGiorgio, Joseph Marchetti and
Lauren Hurtt
None of this would be possible were it not for the
generosity of our contest sponsors. Thank you so much for your
on-going support: CapeBank Foundation, South Jersey Industries,
Wawa, Inc.
____________________________________________________________________________________________
 The War Against Cancer
By Kristen Valenti, Cherokee High School
First Place Winner for Essay
People say it’s better to know something is going to
happen and prepare for it. People say you can make the best of the
time. They smile, they whisper, they buy pretty things and come
around as if they have always been there. They say it’s better this
way when the light in the room is turned out and the beeping stops.
They hug you, but they do not know. They will never really know.
They don’t see the times you watch the bed, just gazing
for hours to see if she’s still breathing. They don’t feel the
squeeze of the hand when she cannot respond but knows you’re there.
They don’t see her face when she cannot walk anymore. They don’t see
her with her rosary when she cannot move anything but her hands, up
and down in prayer. Sure, it’s better you knew. Yeah, okay. It was better
to watch someone die because of something unwanted. It was better to
watch a battle wage inside the person you love. It was better to know
because the enemy had tanks and you had a squirt gun. Yeah, okay.
Right. You smile at the people who say this; they tell you how much
she loved you and a piece of you slowly dies inside because you know
what’s coming next:
“I’m sorry for your loss. I didn’t know she had cancer.
She was a fighter.”
But the cancer won.
“Nothing could get her; it was just her time.”
The cancer gave her the expiration date. It decided she
was a cup of yogurt.
“She lived a long life; God, she was a trooper.”
But the cancer was a better trooper.
“She was a great woman.”
So why did cancer take her?
You sit on the altar of the church, you hold your head
and everyone leaves you alone because this is a funeral, your
grandmother died of cancer, and half the people called you the wrong
name anyway. You brush your arm against something. You are surrounded
by sunflowers. You remember your sister hunting them down even though
it’s January, because your grandmother wanted them. You look at one,
so full of life and vibrant. You touch the petals, finding one with
hideous brown spots spreading across the bright, lovely yellow. You
rip it off, it’s imperfect, it’s intruding, it’s not supposed to be
there. You stamp it with your black shoe. You want to spit on it. How
dare a brown spot be on your grandmother’s flowers.
You feel the tears slip down your cheeks silently, and
your breath is staggered trying to keep composure. You feel hate
welling up inside you. It isn’t hate of the people around you or
death itself. It’s the hate of the thing that grew inside your grandmother.
It’s the loathing of the thing that attacks too quickly, shuts people
down piece by piece. It’s the thing that steals dignity in the worst
possible way, and you’re so terrified of it, so full of hate for it,
you cannot even say it aloud.
The day skips. Viewing—backroom—holding your sister’s
hand—casket closing—car. Suddenly you are in a graveyard. Everyone is
around the freshly dug grave and you don’t want to get out of the
car. You want to sink through the car and ground like quicksand. You
want to see your grandmother again. You don’t want to accept she’s
gone. You are given a sunflower to hold from your sister. You’re
still in denial, so you sit still and, in your head, bounce through
the last five months.
You remember the day in August you were told your
grandmother was not going to make it and the earnest denial from your
family, the endless talk of second opinions. You denied it too. You
remember the acceptance months later after endless trips to the
hospital. You remember your father crying for the first time. You
remember the news that there was no treatment. You remember vividly
the “matter of time” talks doctors like to give to ease the fact they
just gave you an expiration date on your loved one. You remember
bringing in pictures and drawings for your grandmother, even when she
could barely open her eyes. You remember sifting through decades of
photographs for her. You remember pushing her in a wheelchair up and
down the hallway. You remember Christmas Eve on her hospital bed,
feigning normalcy. You remember the last few days, spending your time
after school and Winter Vacation by her side. You remember her
squeezing your hand as you retell stories of times together. You
remember when you knew it was her last few hours. You remember being
home, the phone call, the crying, the “better place” talk. You
remember the most important thing she said when she knew she was
about to leave you:
“When there’s love, that’s it.”
Your sister holds your hand as you sit motionless in the
car and you still feel the love. You know love is dancing around you
and as long as it is there, your grandmother is there. You emerge
from the car. You look around at your family laying a circle of roses
on your grandmother’s casket. Your sister supports you to the casket and
you put your sunflower in the middle of the roses next to hers. You
stare at the casket six feet above the hole and you pause.
“I love you,” you whisper, giving a quiet salute to the
latest victim in the war against cancer before walking away to join
the ranks of those not drafted. You walk in a joined line. You will
remember. You will wait. You will hope. You will refuse to forget. In
your grandmother’s memory, you will refuse to let cancer win the war.
____________________________________________________________________________________________
 A Memory of Sadness
By:
Steven Layton, Cumberland Regional High School
First Place Winner for Poem
At the
young age of eight, a small boy sat crying.
He knew in his heart that his father was dying.
He wanted to stay, and spend time with his dad,
But the doctors said that his condition was bad.
The cancer was spreading,
It was taking control,
It devoured his body,
It was eating him whole.
The boy kept on praying, he prayed day and night.
He would constantly pray with all of his might.
The six months went quickly, they went by too fast,
His heart broke in two when his father had passed.
His occupation had turned from praying to weeping,
And he spent several nights without any sleeping.
That young boy was me, more than six years ago,
And I still ask myself why my dad had to
go.
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