Chasing Fireflies

Chasing Fireflies

The summer I met Cassie Taylor I knew very little about life. In my childhood innocence I believed that children had fun, happy lives and that they always grew up and began families. However, Cassie taught me that life was very short and that you should live everyday as if it were your last.
During the summer before I turned ten, our family traveled to Ashland, Kentucky so that my daddy could work at a electrical power plant “shut-down.” As he worked, my mama and I explored the surrounding towns and walked around the RV Park where we stayed. The park was not overly large but gravel roads intertwined throughout the land. On one of these walks I met Cassie; her Shirley Temple blond curls and outgoing personality drew people to her. From the moment she said, “What’s your name?”, I was enthralled.
From that day forward we were inseparable. If we were not swimming in the frigid creek that meandered around the RV Park, we could be found swinging on the old, rusty swing set eating ice-cream cones, playing hide-and-seek in the dark, or chasing fireflies. Cassie was just fun to be around.
Cassie was unlike anyone I had ever met. She was constantly laughing or had a smile on her face. Cassie’s laughter seemed to bubble from the depths of her soul like a thousand tiny tinkering bells blowing in the breeze. She had a joy that she could barely contain. Before I could stop myself, she had me giggling and smiling as much as she did. Cassie had a gift for drawing. She would carry a light blue spiral bound sketch pad with her almost everywhere she went. There were drawings of local birds, the creek, her family and various other people that stayed at the RV Park. One day I sat for what seemed like hours as she sketched me swinging on the RV Park’s swing set. Cassie was a talker, but she also knew when to sit and listen as if she had all the time in the world.
One night after a long day of escapades with Cassie, I went back to our Jayco travel trailer. The moment I opened the door I knew something was wrong. Mama sat very quietly on the couch with her hands clasped together in her lap. Her normally bright hazel eyes were filled with tears. With a tear strained voice mama told me that she had talked to Cassie’s mother and that Cassie had been diagnosed with Acute Myelogenous Leukemia during the spring. The stages was so advanced that she had been to specialists all over the country and there were no treatments possible. She went on to say that doctors had given Cassie two to four months to live. Tears streamed down my face as I listened to how severe Cassie’s illness was. Because my mama was a nurse, I didn’t completely understand all the medical terms she used, but one thing I did know was; that my friend, Cassie, was going to die soon. She had already been granted her last wish by the Make A Wish Foundation to travel with her grandma to Hawaii to a Benny Hinn conference. Something her grandma had wanted to do for years. Cassie was a giver. She used her last wish to make someone else’s wish come true. When my mama was done telling me the details of Cassie’s illness, she hugged me and I went outside to the campground swing set and cried. It didn’t seem fair that Cassie was not going to grow up or have a family. I thought about what mama said concerning Cassie not wanting to dwell on her illness but to just have fun at her aunt and uncle’s campground her last summer. So I promised that I would never mention Cassie’s illness unless she brought it up first. It was the least I could do for my friend.
We continued to our daily adventures, but as the weeks passed by Cassie was not allowed to do as many activities as she normally did. Swimming, riding her bike and playing hide-and-seek were but a short lived adventure. The night before we left to go to West Virginia for another electrical plant shut-down, Cassie was bound to a bright pink wheel chair because she was too weak to stand. It was dark outside as I rolled her to sit beside the swing set. A Mason jar with tiny holes in the lid was clasped in her frail hands. I chased fireflies while she held them captive in the jar. The last time I saw Cassie she was sitting in her wheelchair in the middle of the gravel road that curved through the RV Park. Her body was weak and her arm was barely raised to wave good bye, but there was a bright, cheerful smile on her face.
This is how I remember Cassie, happy and full of life. We received word that eight days later Cassie passed away in her sleep. Her life was short by all means but she lived more in those eleven years than most people live in a lifetime. Cassie taught me that no one was promised tomorrow and that each day was a precious gift from God.