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I
Dear Hazel Grace,
There are a billion living stars, each part of millions and millions of constellations spread across the ever-expanding universe. I don't know exactly how many stars there are, and I don't know which of these stars hold solar systems and how many of these solar systems hold dear life. I doubt we'll ever know. But what I do know are the things that are happening now. The way I know that it's raining outside and the little raindrops slide down the window as they desperately cling onto each other. I know that you'll still be you-alive-tomorrow when I wake up, and the morning after, and the morning thereafter. And I know that I love you. I know that the way birds know how to sing in the morning.
These letters are for you, Hazel Grace. Just in case for when we're old bickering grandpas and grandmas (if we ever make it that far, which I highly doubt). We could read them together in front of a futuristic fireplace, in a futuristic world, where they at least have prosthetic legs that aren't that damn hard to carry. Out of all the one-legged guys in the world you could choose, you chose me, and that Hazel Grace, is a truly huge honor.
Hazel Grace Lancaster, I love you, and I hope you do too.
I I
You have a certain way of thinking about things, and I believe it's a good way. However, I can't help but think about oblivion and humanity, and the universe that keeps us alive and self-aware but is also killing us at the very same time.
I have the feeling that people get attached to way too many things at once. They cling onto that one thing in the hope they'll never have to lose it, but the harder they pull, the faster it disappears. Like a bow and arrow, the only thing you have to do is let go. The worst thing is still coming Hazel Grace. An arrow is not like a boomerang, it will never come back. Instead, it creates an irreplaceable hole and it stays there forever
I've been thinking, maybe we should go on a holiday sometime? You and I, together. It would be nice. I just wish we had the money and the opportunity.
I I I
Today while I was in the waiting room of the hospital, I started studying other people's faces. I looked around and tried to understand their stories, why they look like the way they do. All those people are going to be forgotten one day.
That's the reason why I fear oblivion Hazel Grace, because I know the same thing will happen to me. I will probably end up somewhere at the end of the ever ongoing list of people that have died because of cancer. And nobody would remember me.
After you die, people will tell you that they will always remember you or try to make you feel better or they look at the sky and say things like "I know you're watching from above". Why does everyone love you when you're dead?
Maybe because we don't realize how precious the people around us are, maybe we don't appreciate something enough until it's gone. But that's not true Hazel, we've always appreciated it, we were just too fragile to be able to imagine a life without them. We are too young to understand and accept it, so that's why we grief. We find a way to blame ourselves or other people, but it's not your fault, it's not theirs. It's nobody's fault that the people you love, will be gone once.
I V
Remember the first time I said you were beautiful? I couldn't help but look at the amusement in your eyes as you stared at me. I couldn't help but think that you probably—very probably (if that even exists)—thought that I was beautiful too.
You are such a vain little prick you would probably think right now.
They say that the eyes are the windows to the soul, and I looked right into yours Hazel Grace. Your soul was so bright and so clear. There was this exhilarating feeling burning inside me and I think I fell a little in love with you at that moment.
Just a little.
And after a while you finally admitted that I was beautiful too and I think love just poured down all at once, hitting every inch of me. I think I fell in love with you at that moment.
Completely.
I fell in love with you just like in a love story Hazel Grace.
As the clocked ticked forward, while the whole world went on without realizing thousands of people died this minute, we're drowning in oblivion. Time is unforgivable. And one day, these stories will be forgotten too and if that day comes, who still cares?
V
Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and think about you Hazel Grace, I think about us. Our story will never be any more special than all the others that have already been told. We're just another part of coincidence in a masterpiece. A bunch of atoms attracted to each other in a universe made of stardust. And we call it art, a beautiful story.
But I can't stand the fact that so much beauty in this world of art is wasted. So much inspiration, love and precious thoughts just flash by without any recognition. But hasn't it always been like this? We're not any different from the people before us, we're not more intelligent or more stable. The truth is, we all are a bunch of ignorant animals.
We're all fill-ups, nobody will be remembered forever. So why do we still try so hard?
We're obsessed with it, Hazel Grace.
All of us.
V I
Life is like a paradox, we try reaching for things we'll never achieve, we love the things we can't get. We are a paradox, and you are too, Hazel Grace. We're full of regret-pride, love-hate, treachery-trust and so on. And while I am writing, I can't help thinking about how beautiful our reality is. So when I'm lonely, I just close my eyes and imagine you by my side. As you breathe in and out, I wrap my arms around you and I feel complete.
We should meet van Houten sometime.
Sometime maybe
V I I
I find this world fascinating. It's funny really, how every single day you walk past hundreds of people and sometimes you start questioning who that person is or if he will be famous one day or if the person you just shaked hands with might be a serial killer. Sometimes you even start wondering how many people died this very minute and how many of them had families and friends and how many of them where left behind, grieving. And then you start to realize that every day could be YOUR last and then it's not that funny anymore.
Hazel Grace, I think you're beautiful and I know that there are a thousand definitions of beauty. But I believe that there's something about beauty that is not physical, it's just like looking at a painting and admire each and every detail of it, but it's not real. It is just a person's view on reality.
There is so much beauty we don't see, or don't want to see. Dying, is one of them. The process of dying on the other hand is not a beautiful thing at all. But death itself is peculiar, it's when the heart stops beating, when the eyes go dark and the body still remains there on the very same spot but the life's gone.
Death is believed to be a curse, but only now I realize. Death is not a curse for the dying, it's for the living. For the ones that are left behind.
V I I I
It's weird how we all dragged our body weight to the coastline and remained there like fish on the drought, until we realized that there were ways to cross the ocean, the ocean we believed would lead us the end of the world. We thought that it was a very impressive thing to achieve and celebrated it like we were heroes of the universe.
Then hundreds of years later we found out that there was way more to discover than just the earth and sky, and we found out that the sky we thought we knew contained more stars and other 'earths' than we could imagine.
Suddenly, we were small, so small that we didn't matter at all.
But none of that is quite true.
I am just like that little fish on the drought and you, Hazel Grace, are the coastline beneath me. We seem so useless and small because it looks like the ocean — the oh so impressive ocean with its intimidating waves that could shatter us any moment — is swallowing us bit by bit. But we are not useless Hazel Grace, because what would be the use of an ocean without its coastline? What would be the use of a coastline without that little fish on it?
What would be their purpose if there was no one to admire the beauty of something so great and yet so simple?
We are important because we matter to each other Hazel Grace.
I X
Do you ever have the urge to scream? Scream when life and all of its so-called 'perks' become too much for one to comprehend and you are left behind with nothing but sorrow? Sometimes I do, I need to scream to clear my head, and then my parents will rush to my room but I just send them away time after time. After that they ask me whether I'm okay and I just say 'yes' because I refuse to deal with the inevitable consequences that come with 'no, I am not'.
I don't want to be afraid Hazel Grace. How are you not afraid, how do you do that? People grow old, live becomes tedious and after some time, you start asking "is this everything?". Then you start wondering when the only Earth you know will fall apart. When all we are will be faded away at once and whether there will be anything after that. Just so that beings from another universe travel to our puny, little world and question whether there was life here sometime ago.
It's such sheer ignorance and stupidity, to think that we humans are living in the only reality that there is.
Do you wonder whether reality is just an illusion Hazel Grace?
Is love just an illusion?
I want to know.
I need to know.
X
"I'm a roller coaster that only goes up."
I said that in support group, the first time I went there, I told Patrick. So after a while, I was thinking about it. A roller coaster cannot only go up, Hazel Grace. If it does, there are only 2 options left 1) you will have to make a immensely steep decent to be able go to back to your starting point, or 2) it is guaranteed that you'll crash into the ground because the track simply stops.
Either way, you will end up on the ground once again.
I am not a roller coaster that only goes up, Hazel Grace. I will have to go down again at some point and then the track will simply repeat itself, but it is always easier the second time around they say.
Life is about the same. When you do good, you'll go up. When you make mistakes, you'll go down. So when you have to take risks again, the impact of your mistakes (the less good points) won't be as huge as the first time.
So I'm wondering, will you go on this roller coaster journey together with me?
X I
A cigarette and a grenade are actually very similar. Both are harmless if you don't light them up/pull the pin. Both are deadly. Both will kill someone at a certain point and both will leave scars behind.
But that does not stop people from using them.
And you're probably wondering why people still pull the pin/light the cigarette, well to tell you the truth, they don't know why. You don't feel the impact immediately. The force of it draws you in at first, but it'll kill you eventually, it does.
You see, Hazel Grace? I could hold a grenade in my hand, hold it against my heart. Without it causing any harm. You'll just have to trust yourself not to pull the pin, because a grenade can not (of course not) pull its own pin. Someone else has do it.
And that someone will have to decide for themselves.
X I I
Time is a cruelty created by humans. We live our lives rushed by the thought that every second is a second you will never experience twice, and in some context that might be true. There is one thing Hazel Grace, time shouldn't define us. It shouldn't be an indication for what's possible, or out of our limits because we are too old or too young or the earth just hasn't turned enough times to explode.
Time is also fear, and fluid like a raging waterfall. I think that's what the Dutch tulip man meant, Hazel Grace. It takes everything with it.
The Grim reaper does not know 'time' for he doesn't fear it. He outlasts time and all the other things existent in this universe, and all the other universes that'll follow.
I'm trying to find an eternity within this limited time.
I am seeking oblivion Hazel Grace.
X I I I
I knew already. I knew it when we walked the bridge in Amsterdam, I knew when we visited the house of Peter van Houten. I knew that I was going to die, Hazel Grace. It was kind of sad. The realization, knowing that I was going to leave you behind, alone. That I could never comfort you in times when the reality was too much to take in.
But our love was not a waste of time, or an excuse to ignore our responsibilities and start on the first page of a new book.
I don't know how to put my feelings into words, so here's an excerpt from "The Price of Dawn" .
We all have our own inglorious ways of dying, the lone shadow believed. Some die and become nobodies. Others, however, become living legends. With that, this person decapitated the last living blood-stained body on the battlefield of broken corpses. Miles of wasteland lay before him.
I do not want to die, having people remembering me the way they want me to be. Because that wouldn't be me anymore. I want to die a nobody. There is no blessing in being eternally remembered.
Sergeant Max Mayhem thought of this when he stumbled across the fields, enjoying the company of the woods — alone — disappearing forever behind the pine trees. Into oblivion.
Yours,
Gus
X I V
Clouds were drifting away and the sky was dark oh it was so dark Hazel Grace. And I looked up at the sky and stars were shining down upon me, upon us even though all of them were long dead. Long dead before they reached our tiny little world. But that certainly did not stop them from shining. So I traced their funny patterns and I swear I even saw a falling star (of course I made a wish Hazel Grace, our wish).
After some time I realized that all our faults ceased to exist and it was perfect, all of it was. I feel euphoric and I'm not sad or angry anymore and I no longer feel deceived by the cruel reality this world brings and I am truly happy, I'm HAPPY Hazel Grace.
My leg hurts and my eyes hurt and my chest hurts and everything hurts, but it's not a bad kind of hurting, it's the kind that you crack a smile through because you know that there's no reason to be sad about the inevitable at all.
And I'll be here thinking,
we were such a tragedy, oh Hazel, but we were a good one.
So don't you worry about me Hazel Grace. I am not going to regret us, because in the end, I believe our faults aren't faults at all and that nevertheless whatever alterations we make in our decisions, it will always lead to this. You live, I die. It had to be.
Do you ever feel yourself slowly drifting and drifting and drifting and drifting and dri—