he was nothing more than happiness and smiles and rianbows, even though he went through all that. he was stronger than most people who go through cancer treatement and he went out with a bang, listening to his favorite music and stuffing his face with oreos, or oralies as he called them. he was loved, and he still is.

I would never imagine seeing a child in a coffin, something small and dainty like a doll's box. The room was quiet, enough to hear your own heartbeat pounding behind your ears. There was an awkward smell that seemed unwelcoming. I walked into the room, heart dropping to my stomach after seeing my cousin's small body. The pearl white coffin was about three feet long, a size too small for the amount of life he had lived despite the age difference between he and I. Pale and cold, he was covered with burns and scars. I couldn’t believe this is how he went.
I couldn’t look away, this moment was unimaginable, how could he be gone after living only three years I only got close to him in the last two. He looked as if  he was asleep on a hospital bed, unable to tell he was gone but, the coffin said otherwise. He looked like a porcelain doll my grandmother used to collect, pale and delicate. The skin on his body bruised and beat up, imitating the dust and wear from being handled over the years.  There was no other way you could feel in a situation like this except devastation, a child who hasn’t lived a life was gone forever. Though he was gone, he was in a better place.                                
This was a day everyone was dreading, we were all hoping to get past this without any more problems than were already caused. It was especially hard for us knowing what happened because we had been by his side ever since day one.
On the way to the hospital all the wrong things were concocting in our heads. Sicknesses, poisonings, life threatening diseases, maybe some form of magic curse just to spite our family. It made sense though, my grandmother lived in a haunted house for most of her lifetime in the U.S.  How could he have any disease, how and why would it prevent him from walking properly?
We hoped and prayed it wasn't cancer, even though there are many things out there that are far worse than cancer and extremely expensive that's the last thing we wanted to hear come out of the doctors mouth. Anxiously waiting in the lobby of the hospital, negative things were pooling in the back of our heads, but we never would of thought it was. The doctor walked up to us, stress painted on his face and pain etched into his brow. Immediately we all jumped from our seat, I holding Alex anxiety running through my veins. 
When the doctor relayed to us that it in fact was cancer and it was far more progressed than expected we all had lost hope. He explained to us that Neuroblastoma is undetectable until it's very final stages, which makes it harder to recover than other forms of cancer. This was our case, all those doctors visits and appointments leading up to autism were wrong. Delayed speech and learning and temper tantrums caused by the one and only, cancer.
It was unimaginable that he actually had cancer, as if we weren't allowed to process this thought in our brains. The doctor suggest we start treatment almost immediately or as soon as we could since it would be a costly process. We left the hospital in despair, a two year old with cancer, who possibly won't live to see another child. For my aunt and uncle of course it was the hardest to accept, their first born son dying with cancer. It is one thing a parent shouldn't have to go to at all, especially with a baby.  
We started hitting the books and researching this wretched disease as much as we could. Ways to prevent and ultimately get rid of neuroblastoma. My mother tended to pray about everything that happened, every surgery, CAT scan and check up he had, hoping and praying to God that everything was going to get better and he was going to be healed and be alright. Sometimes she would doubt him, the cancer would come back worse and in different places than it was before making Alex sicker than he already was. 
We finally rounded up enough money for treatment, eventually hitting rock bottom again. We had started a little campaign on Facebook to raise money for Alex and for other children for Neuroblastoma. Treatment after treatment nothing was getting better, it was as if the chemotherapy would kill and raise the cancer cells up from the dead until finally the doctors gave up and suggested he'd transfer to another hospital in New York that has dealt with a cancer case just like Alex has. At New York they finally suggested we step up to a higher, stronger form of treatment, radiation. Casting and molding to prevent further spread of cancer to the body, long sessions of laying under an infrared radiation beam, hoping and praying that soon this demon would leave his body and this poison we call treatment would finally work and heal him. 
The radiation wasn't working, creating more and more cancerous cells in his body adding to the sickness instead of taking away. He was finally on the verge of dying rather than helping him the treatment was making everything worse. Burns appeared on his pale white skin, causing imperfections, scarring him and preventing his from ever looking normal again. The burns on his head singed his hair in the form of an old man balding, he was 3 going 60. Exhaustion in his eyes, pain in his joints and eyes. He was the one who was ready to go but we weren't. 
Days and weeks had passed, his state worsening with each hour. We began to accept what was going to happen, there was no other choice. His mother after staying all those months with him in the hospital decided to take him home for his final days to make him more comfortable. Flying up to New Jersey, my mother was there to spend time with him during his final days, we would always try our hardest to come in the worst times hoping he wasn’t going to leave us just yet, and God gave us that gift of extra days to be with him.                     
They say the day before you die you're hit with this burst of energy, like nothing bad has happened to you, that you can run a marathon and still be okay. There was a spark of hope in us when he hit this day, "maybe he will be okay, he isn't sick anymore." Unfortunately we were wrong, so we decided to make it the best. There was no way of preventing what was happening, there was only accepting and getting through it. My mother flew home, hope in her heart that he will be better by the time she got back with us. Packing and getting ready doubt in our hearts now, his mother informing us every minute that his health was declining but all we could do now is hope and pray that he got better.
That night my aunt had called us, bags packed and ready tickets bought, that he had passed. 11:30 at night, dawn would be approaching in six and a half hours. He couldn’t live to see another day and we had to accept that. His mother holding him and in his home, he was happy when he passed, and that is the way it should've been. We were sad, heart broken that he was actually gone. We thought this was all just a dream that he would just wake up after his long needed rest, but he was really gone and he was never going to come back. 
We couldn’t have caught it at an earlier time, it was completely undetectable to us and the doctors till he was stage four. Alex was about two when we found out he had cancer. It had spread throughout his whole body, a plague of cells sickening his body. Worsening with each day though some were better than others. We thought it was the end there, nobody ever thought he would fight as much as he did. The fact that he was only two, and he was able to stay strong through all of this defied our odds. This really was a game of hide and seek, one day it was there the next it was completely gone. There was no way to be sure that it would be gone forever, but when he left we knew he wouldn't be suffering anymore.
The death of a child is somewhat forlorn, especially when it is a member of the family. Though everyone was mourning I still was able to grasp onto the brighter side of the gloomy things, he was gone but he was still somehow with us. Alex was such a bright spirit, he could bring light any room with his presence. He was, and still is, the radiance of the sun that broke through the darkness. A smile always plastered on his face through thick and thin, a laugh always caught in his throat. The fact that he could be happy, even though all of these things happened is crazy to me.
The nights where he laid in a hospital bed, the chemo burning through his veins. Pains in his bones, the marrow dying slowly with each day. The cancer was an animal attacking his small body, literally a mutagen invading. New Jersey and New York couldn’t be the end of this cancer, two different hospitals and two different approaches. Still through all of this he was able to keep a smile on that little face of his. Music ran through his veins side by side with the chemo therapy. He loved listening to Drake and The Weekend, blasting it whenever he felt sad, the curses making the innocent child burst out into laughter besides the pain that was residing inside of him. He himself happiness in a child, and he was greatly loved by all of us.