Sarah
(Acute Myeloid Leukemia)
Meet Sarah! Sarah dreams of becoming an astronaut and space explorer. She is also one of the most outgoing and sassiest cancer fighters I have ever met. She has dealt with countless difficulties, including staying in the hospital for more than three hundred days. Sarah is also the recipient of a lifesaving bone marrow transplant. It is amazing to me that some of us carry lifesaving cures to cancer. So cool!
Sarah is from Montana but travels to Salt Lake City for treatments and doctor appointments. In November 2014, she was in Utah for a couple of days so we took a day for her photo shoot. You can see some behind-the-scenes images from her shoot by using the QR code below.
www.anythingcanbeproject.com/dream-blog/2014/11/11/sarah-magera-astronaut
Swimming in the Stars
Ilima Todd
22:04 31.7.2917 Cryo Tank #36: Initializing Cognizant Restoration
My eyes open, but it’s still dark. I cannot see.
I am blind.
I blink and blink and blink. Nothing but blackness. My eyelids struggle to lift and close. Something heavier than air presses down on them. I panic when I realize water engulfs my eyes, my face, my body.
I am drowning.
My mouth opens, but my scream remains caught in my throat; my lungs are engulfed by this water as well.
That’s when I feel the cold. Raw. Biting. It’s an impossible cold. I shouldn’t be alive or aware feeling this kind of cold. I finally remember, as though the cold has slowed the flow of my thoughts. I’m not blind, and I’m not drowning.
I am swimming in the stars.
An image of my mother appears. A memory.
She stands on the shore of a lake with a towel in her hands. “Come back,” she calls to me. “Sarah, it’s too cold. It’s time to come in.”
“Just one more minute,” I say, arching my back and extending my arms and legs as I float on the still lake. It’s dark out, and the stars reflect on the quiet water, making me feel as though I’m floating among the constellations. I tilt my head back and close my eyes, silently wishing I really was up there in space, weightless, drifting in the emptiness without this planet holding me down.
A roaring sound jolts me from my calm, and my feet drift down to settle in the muddy foundation of the lake. I look across the water to the launching station, to the slender form of the spacecraft, the fiery jets propelling it into the air. I watch until it breaks through the atmosphere and casts a blazing streak through the dark night, like a shooting star. I make a wish that I’ll be chosen soon. That I’ll finally get my chance to launch into space like others before me.
When I finally step out of the water, Mom wraps me in the towel.
“Did you see the spacecraft?” I ask, my teeth chattering. “That’s the sixth one today. They’re leaving more often now.” Dozens of people are aboard each one, settling into their cryo tanks for the hundred-year journey.
“Yes,” Mom says. “I saw it.” Rubbing her hands up and down my arms to warm me, she adds, “Don’t worry. We’re not meant to stay here. We never were. This planet can’t keep its fingers wrapped around us forever. It’ll be our turn soon, Sarah.”
I follow her gaze to the bits of dust and debris left in the spacecraft’s wake, multiplied in the reflection of the lake. They fall to the surface, left behind like the rest of us. I hope my mother is right. I hope I won’t have to wait much longer to really swim in the stars.
The memory slips away, along with the water that surrounds me, draining to leave me shivering in the dark of my cryo tank. I still can’t see, but I turn to my side anyway, coughing up the remaining liquid oxygen inside me. When I inhale this time, it’s air that enters my chest, and it burns. Collapsing onto my back, I bring a hand to my chest and will my lungs to move under my direction—breathe in, breathe out. After a few minutes, my lungs remember what they’re meant for, and the burning isn’t as severe. But I continue to shiver in the frigid cold.
I hear a whisper, as though someone has let out a small sigh, and a thin stretch of light surrounds me as the roof of my cryo tank lifts open, breaking away from its seal. Warmth floods me immediately, making me shiver again, but this time with relief. I sit up, my muscles protesting every movement, while my eyes strain to adjust to the light of the room. It’s as though every part of me has forgotten its intended function and needs a minute to remember.
When I can finally focus, I see the familiar interior of a spacecraft. It is compact and utilitarian, meant for a singular purpose: a one-way trip to a faraway planet. I slip out of my cryo tank, sparing a moment to steady my feet. Identical tanks line up alongside mine, but none of the others have opened yet. I run my finger along a metal label on the lower half of my tank: Sarah Magera. Liquid drips from my bodysuit to the floor, but I’m too excited to care that I’m making a mess. If I’m awake, then that means . . .
I hurry to the port side and walk to the front of the ship, looking for a viewing window to see outside. But the walls are covered with metal and wire or glowing buttons. One button catches my eye: artificial gravity. The side of my mouth rises, and I only hesitate a moment before I press the button.
Everything begins to rattle, like a space giant has tapped the side of our ship to see if anyone’s inside. My entire body vibrates, and it reminds me of another memory from home.
“It’s starting,” I say, pulling on Mom’s arm. “We’re going to miss it.”
She smiles and drops the shirt she’s been folding, following me out the front door. We get on our hands and knees and crawl into the cardboard box I’ve fashioned into a spacecraft, modeled after the one about to take off across the lake.
“Hurry.” I roll onto my back and make room for her. “We have to finish our launch prep.” I pretend to strap myself into my imaginary seat.
“Ten,” Mom says. “Nine . . . eight.”
I press the make-believe buttons in front of us. “Fuel—check. Oxygen—check.”
“Seven.” Mom pulls her hands down the sides of her face as though securing a helmet to her shoulders. “Six . . . five.”
I do the same and then reach for her hand to squeeze it. “This is what we’ve trained for,” I whisper. “We’re ready.”
Mom squeezes back. “Four . . . three . . . two.”
I hear the roaring of the real spacecraft in the distance and imagine the sweet anticipation of those on board. I try to mimic it—beads of sweat form along my forehead, and my heart races in my chest.
“One.”
I press my body into the ground to imitate the g-forces at work. The ground vibrates in reaction to the real launch. And when it finally stills, I close my eyes and envision the black of space surrounding me.
Home is swept away from my mind like a handful of dust. Except my planet isn’t home, is it? Not anymore.
The rattling stops. Slowly my arms feel lighter and hover beside me, and when I press off the floor, I drift into the air, floating in the cramped quarters of the ship. My yellow hair sticks out all over the place without gravity telling it what to do, and when I touch the fabric of my suit, water droplets scatter away in all directions, swimming with me among these stars.
I stretch out my arms and legs, arch my back, and close my eyes, basking in weightlessness. No anchor. No ground to hold me back, no water to keep me afloat. This is the opposite of drowning. It is drifting in particles of light and space. It is life.
I tilt my head back and open my eyes, half expecting to see a spacecraft shooting into the atmosphere, but then I remember I’m on that craft now. I’ve already shot into the sky. I’ve already broken through the atmosphere and stretched across the black night. I am the star some other girl has wished upon.
I kick myself toward the port front and extend my arms to stop myself near the gravity button. I press it again, and slowly my body lowers to the floor of the ship. I run my fingertips along the rest of the buttons and pause at another one: observation window. I press it, and the entire roof of the ship begins to retract. Thick glass separates me from the universe. When the retraction stops, so does my heart. Because there, filling the entire window, is the most beautiful planet I’ve ever seen.
I studied photographs of this as a child.
I endured endless lessons about it in school.
Rumors have been passed down through generations.
But none of it does the planet justice. I am swimming among the stars, but for the first time in my life, I want to be anchored. I want to be on that ground more than anything.
“How long will it take?” I ask, tugging on the collar of my bodysuit.
Mom smiles, brushing a strand of hair out of my face. “You know it’s a hundred years, Sarah. You’ve always known that.”
“No,” I say. “I mean . . . how long will it feel like?”
She glances around the interior of the spacecraft that will be our home for the next century. “It will feel like you’ve woken from a long nap. And the life you’ve lived before will be a fleeting dream compared to what awaits us, to what will be within your grasp when you wake.”
I lie back and settle in place inside my cryo tank. “I wish we could spend a little while in space,” I say. “While we’re awake, I mean. I wish we could live among the stars instead.”
“No, Sarah. When you see our new home, you’ll want to be there as soon as you can.” Mom leans over and kisses my forehead. “It’s where we came from. Where we belong. Where we’re meant to be.”
“I love you, Mom.”
She pats my cheek and steps back from my cocoon. “Love you, Sarah.”
The cryo lid moves into place, and everything goes dark.
I can already feel it, the pull this planet has over me. It mocks the confines of this ship, knows it owns me before we’ve even met. I reach an arm upward, wanting to shake its hand. I long to know what it feels like to walk along the green grass. To run my hands through the blue water. Feel the wind that commands the wispy white clouds through the sky.
I don’t know how long I stand there yearning for something so close yet still out of reach. Until . . .
“You’re awake.”
I drop my arm and turn to the familiar voice. “Mom?” My own voice shakes, and I wipe the tears that trickle down my face.
“Oh, sweetheart.” She steps toward me in her damp bodysuit and buries me in her embrace. “Welcome home, Sarah.” She glances at the window roof and smiles. “Welcome to Earth.”
Ilima Todd
Ilima Todd was born and raised on the north shore of Oahu and dives for octopus with her dad every time she visits—otherwise she’s diving into books in the Rocky Mountains where she lives with her husband and four children. She graduated from Brigham Young University with a degree in physics and eats copious amounts of raw fish and avocados without regret. But mostly she loves being a wife and mama and wouldn’t trade that job for anything in the world.