2025 SCHOLASTIC ART & WRITING FLAUNT IT AWARD FINALIST. Death shouldn’t have a space in a four-year-old’s mind. My mind, though, gave death the whole space as I stood on the deck of that Disney Cruise.

“She is going to die!” Five words that I have held on to forever. Battling a rare autoimmune disease, having only lived four years, is a hard pill to swallow—but dying?

I knew I was sick. I knew that’s what the Make-A-Wish trip was for, but my cruise’s first port of call was introducing me to my own mortality. The sea was an escape until the crew told me that, at forty-eight inches tall, I was three inches from getting my chance to ride the coveted waterslide. Dad’s solution? Screaming that his dying princess needed to get on.

Once Dad stopped yelling, I began to cry. I’d been crying a lot. My tears began over the weak muscles. Unable to walk up the stairs, I had to quit soccer. Then, the doctors forbade me from being in the sun. I watched other kids run around outside while I cried with my umbrella and long sleeves under a big tree. When my mom came running at me with the bottle of sunscreen, the tears didn’t go away; they were just mixed with the white paste.

People knew me as “the sick girl.” Prayer groups, Facebook groups, and blog posts made my disease my whole identity. I was the girl in the hospital.

That Thanksgiving break was my chance to be the happy kid on the cruise. Instead, I discovered I was the dying girl whose last wish was to be a princess for a week.

Surprisingly, when I heard the truth from my dad, I didn’t stand there sobbing. I walked over to the ice cream machine. I knew that not being allowed on the waterslide was out of my control, so I walked away and chose a chocolate vanilla swirl.

If dying was inevitable, maybe I could choose what parts of me died first. Maybe, just maybe, I could refuse to let this death sentence consume me and start living every day like it was my last.

So, I dug a grave for my fears—of being judged, being sentimental, being perceived as silly or immature. I mean, if I was going to die young anyway, why be so grown up?

I grew curious. I asked questions in class, even if they might sound stupid. Instead of running from death, I chased vulnerability. Not knowing if I could feel these emotions later, I absorbed each one and learned how it worked. The dying girl deeply felt love with each hug and giggled at each frivolous joke. She empathized with the little girl she smiled at in the hospital hallway because she was sick, too.

I was forced to grieve a traditional childhood. To this day, I can’t go in the sun. But the beach is still my favorite place. I adore how the light shoots up when the round sun peeks through the ocean’s top in the morning hours and how beams fall from the sky and hit the water to make a sea full of crystals. I love the soft yellow, orange, and pink rays that form a path straight to my family, keeping me company under an umbrella in the sand.

Although I have survived my illness, I still choose to live as the dying girl. She taught me that feeling grief opens you to feel real love. When I see poetry swiping through my “for you” page, each word sinks in. I cry over random dog movies and Frank Ocean songs because I feel the love coming from them. From that young age, the intensity has taught me that true strength is found in the softness of a heart and the warmth of a smile.

Although Dad’s screaming might not have given me a chance to ride the waterslide, I didn’t die. Instead, it gave me the chance to be fully alive.