My life has become nothing more than days filled with pain. Agony from dawn till dusk. Sleepless nights spent clenching my jaw to keep tormented screams locked inside. The doctors can find no source for the pain coursing through my body. Despite their assurances that they would find a way to cure me, my wish was for an end to it. I would never believe in their assurances. They knew nothing about what ailed me, I could see it in the looks they gave one another when they believed I wasn't paying attention.

The shadowy world of that burning torment was all I would know for the rest of my days. I knew that. There was nothing inside me reaching for the hope it would get better. No hope of a light at the end of the tunnel. I could find no hope at all. Death and no more pain was my only hope. Death my fondest wish.

There was nothing for me until the day Holly Lynn Monroe walked into my hospital room. On that day real hope sparked to life inside my breast. It wasn't the hope that the doctors would stumble upon a cure for whatever malady was slowly killing me. It was the knowledge I could make it through the day. That I could get through the endless hours without the pain being the entire focus of my world.

As a volunteer forthe hospital, she brightened my day. Her words soft and lilting, paintingpictures of people and worlds far from the misery of my hospital bed while she read to me. It was on those days, watching the excitement inher blue-green eyes as she read, I could almost forget that one day the painwould finally consume me and all would be lost. Those days were treasures Iheld close. Memories that helped me keep the pain at bay.