Often when I walk towards the park from our home I am reminded of Oscar’s last trip to the park. He was in a wheelchair and he had relapsed whilst still on treatment. This was unexpected and we were supposed to be back home in Denmark on holiday with my family. Oscar was a proud boy and he didn’t like anyone seeing him bald from the chemo and radiotherapy and he certainly didn’t like anyone seeing him unable to walk. But he asked to go to the park as he loved the fresh air and was happy that day with going in a wheelchair – simply accepting that there was no other way. He stopped me, though, from pushing him around during a game of croquet and stubbornly walked around, the pain and tiredness overcoming him. And in true Oscar style, he was unstoppable still. It is to this day that his stubbornness, which so many times frustrated me, is what I remember with such admiration and fondness. He would have moved mountains had he still been here.
On these walks to the park I pass a tree where that day Oscar suddenly asked me to stop and said “I am sorry Mor”. I didn’t know what he was apologising for but he explained that it was his fault we weren’t going to Denmark and he felt bad about it. This floored me and I can still remember wanting to burst into tears but keeping it together and explaining to him that it certainly wasn’t his fault – it was the stupid cancer which he could do nothing about. I also told him that Denmark would be there forever and we would go on the boat again that summer so he could be with family and swim at his beloved beach by my parents – one of the worst lies I have ever had to tell, only topped by letting him choose and buy new Wayne Rooney football boots two weeks before he died. We made sure he had the boots with him along with his Man Utd kit when we said our final goodbye.
Oscar was the kind of boy that would make you feel as Lola Baidel, a Norwegian poet, so aptly puts it in a poem;
I want to
rip my heart out
Put it in your hands
And say
Can you hold this
for a moment
Oscar has forever got a piece of my heart with him and I don’t want it back until we meet again