My brother was diagnosed with fibrolamellar carcinoma in November 2019.

 

And he was gone by March 2020.

 

He thought he just had a stomachache.

It’s the rarest form of liver cancer that attacks healthy people under 30 usually.

The only hospital that would even try was Rush in Chicago, which is right down the road from me.

 

I went there everyday, using a head scratcher on his head. Bringing him food he couldn’t eat. Leaving crying when he told me to because he was moaning in pain.

 

Our mom was checked out at that point.

Our dad, who has always had trouble with addiction, overdosed shortly after Noah passed.

Not a day goes by where he isn’t in my mind.

He was a brother you loved having,

kept my secrets,

helped me sneak out of the house in high school.

When our mom was very depressed and in bed for basically two years in high school we drove each other to our practices and had dinners with ourselves.

 

I miss him more than anything.

It reminds me of when you are little and fell off the monkey bars and get the wind knocked out of you.

Well, happy birthday, Noah. I love you so much.

-Stephanie Allain