A letter to Hazel Grace

Dear Hazel,

How are you feeling? I hope you're doing okay, I mean, as okay as you can be expected to feel. Honestly, you've been so unlucky. Someone really screwed up when they were handing out doses of luck.

I don't want to ask you many things today, Hazel but I do want to tell you things. Firstly, I'll say that you've taught me a lot of things about life. Just life in general and death, too. I think you're wise beyond your years and I think if you were here right now you'd say to me something along the lines of 'well that's good since I won't have many more'. I've always appreciated your bluntness too, in my opinion too many people are way too delicate about death. It's devastating but there's nothing to be done to prevent it, plus if we could live forever overpopulation would be an even bigger issue than it already is.

You have suffered a loss that no one deserves to suffer. You and Augustus were never going to grow old together, that you know but it does not mean either of you deserve the loss. You deserve a normal life just like anyone else, Hazel and it makes me so upset that you'll probably never get that. There is so much in the world that you deserve to experience but you probably won't and I think that is so devastatingly cruel.

Hazel, if I could tell you all the things that you don't deserve, I could be here for a long time. Therefore, I won't but I will tell you that your story has a special place in my heart. As I experience my life, I will think of the people like you and Augustus who won't get to experience the same things I do or in the same ways I do. I'll think of the privileged and healthy life, I am so blessed to be living and that I promise to try not to take it for granted. I know you would die to live my life. I am so dearly sorry about the way things work our sometimes, Hazel.

Sincerely,
Brooklyn.