My life without my "Locke"

by Erica Aku
(Saint John)

On February 21 2010, my friend John Locke Churchill died of cancer. He'd been fighting it for about 2 years and even through all the tough times and all the surgeries, I just thought of him as indestructible, like nothing bad could ever happen to him.

I was at school the next day when my friend came up to me and told me, she'd found out a while before and didn't want to tell me because I was so happy. My first reaction was that it was a sick joke, then later clued in, I cried for the rest of the day, then just became angry. Not angry at my friend for telling me, or God for taking my "Locke" away from me, but at myself.

I had felt so much guilt because 2 days before he died I was supposed to have visited him, but my Father didn't let me. So lately my way of dealing has just been with anger, now the smallest things set me off and all because I still have difficulty looking at a blue sky because John had blue eyes. I can't wake up happy, knowing that he isn't doing the same thing, and I miss how he hugged me, he was probably the only guy in the world who made me feel like I could do anything.

So now I'm on the rugby team, playing a sport he thought I could do, and I wear the jersey with the number 26 on it because it was his birthday, to make me feel like I'm closer to him. But every night I pray that he isn't angry at me for not saying good-bye to him, because I would give ANYTHING in the world to have 1 more moment with him, either to say good-bye or just to hug him one last time.