Live Greco

I know of a boy who is my age. He’s in my science class and I realized fairly quickly he is everything that I am not. He’s outgoing, he’s popular, he’s strong, he’s liked by the girls and guys throughout the entire grade, he’s goodlooking, he’s confident, he’s everything that I want to be, but the one thing I failed to figure out was how much he is hurting on the inside.

I started talking to this boy, let’s call him Roman. Roman and I became friends in a matter of a single night, the night in which he opened up to me about his little brother, Greco.

Greco at the age of two was diagnosed with DIPG, a rare childhood cancer, a brain tumor. Most diagnosed with DIPG have roughly 9 months to live before they pass. He lived for nearly 48 months, passing just after his 6th birthday.

As I talked to Roman, I could see how much he loved and still loves his little brother.

Roman isn’t at all what I thought him to be, he’s heartbroken, he’s still grieving, he’s not popular, he’s not confident, he’s not liked. In his heart, he can only blame himself for Greco’s death, he told me one day that he felt as though Greco was in a glass box. Roman could see Greco, but he couldn’t touch him, he couldn’t help him no matter how hard wanted to or tried to. Roman isn’t what I thought him to be, but that doesn’t mean he can’t be everything I described him as.

I still have hope and believe that Roman can be anything as long as he can come to be at peace with the loss of his little brother.

(A true story)