Lasse decided not to have a reception after the funeral; he said he couldn't handle it. I objected, because it's something that you just do—people would expect it. But I'm glad he got his way, because I couldn't have managed it either. We were completely exhausted after the funeral and it was good to come home and just be alone together, just us three. Luckily Grandma had made bacalao and took care of visitors and everyone else in the family.
A thank you (from Regine and from us)
First of all, we want to thank Children 4, the cancer and blood disease unit at St. Olav's Hospital. The nurses and doctors there are a fantastic group. They took such good care of us and followed up and were responsible for Regine from beginning to end. They didn't give up and wanted to try new medications even after Riksen told her she didn't have long to live. Because of that, Regine found new hope, and had a great summer with wonderful experiences. Thanks to their cooperation with the Kristiansund hospital and thanks to their almost daily phone calls with Lasse, Regine was able to be at home most of the time since February 2009. I didn't think it was possible to live with the blood values that Regine had for such a long time, and I think it's a miracle that Regine lived as long as she did. A big thank you to the bone marrow transplant unit at the National Hospital, who did everything they could to cure Regine. Thank you so much to the nurses and doctors at the Cancer Polyclinic and Palliative Care team at the Kristiansund hospital who took us in so completely and did everything possible to make Regine comfortable. They even came to our home on evenings and weekends when they were actually off work. Thank you for all the help that made it possible for us to care for Regine during the last three or four weeks of her life. You have no idea how much it means to us. I'm also glad we live fifteen minutes away from the hospital, since being at home allowed for Regine to have a much better quality of life during her last ten months. In addition to the fact that we were at the hospital almost every day for blood tests, Regine occasionally needed antibiotics three times a day over a several day period. If we'd been far from the hospital, it wouldn't have been possible for Regine to live at home.
Gone From My Sight
I am standing upon the seashore
A ship at my side spreads her white
sails to the morning breeze and starts
for the blue ocean
She is an object of beauty and strength
I stand and watch her until at length
she hangs like a speck of white cloud
just where the sea and sky come
to mingle with each other
Then, someone at my side says:
“There, she is gone!”
“Gone where?”
Gone from my sight. That is all
She is just as large in mast and hull
and spar as she was when she left my side
and she is just as able to bear her
load of living freight to her destined port
Her diminished size is in me, not in her
And just at the moment when someone
at my side says, “There, she is gone!”
There are other eyes watching her coming,
and other voices ready to take up the glad
shout:
“Here she comes!”
And that is dying.
—Henry Van Dyke
At times from August 2008 to February 2009, Regine was so ill that she needed both Lasse and me to be at the hospital with her. Elise was invited to stay with us and take classes at the hospital.
But she didn't want to. She wanted to be at home where she had friends, dance classes, and school. We always worried about Elise who was at home and had to manage a lot of things on her own. Luckily we've had a lot of help from Grandma, Grandpa, Aunt Anne, and Uncle Arild who watched out for and took care of Elise. I don't know how we would have managed without their help and support.
Thank you so much to Regine's friends for all the visits and support you gave Regine. She was so happy and content on the days she had visits. She came alive and we saw that it did her good. Special thanks to Anne Marthe, Martin, Silje, Karina, and last but not least, dear Eli Ann, who's been her closest and best friend and who was there when Regine needed her most. Eli Ann was the one who understood what Regine was going through, and this understanding meant a lot to Regine; she said so herself.
Thank you to the people who contributed with experiences that made Regine so happy, like the Quart festival, the helicopter trip to RaumaRock, the Ulver concert in Lillehammer, the Caroline movie center, and photo exhibits at Nordic Light and in Surnadal. Thank you also to participants in the benefit concerts for Regine, and in the torch light parade on November 26. Thank you to Jan Erik Haglund from Norway, Inc., for everything you did in regards to the Metallica concert (which unfortunately she wasn't able to attend). And thank you to Dagbladet and its readers for selecting Regine as the 2009 person of the year.
And then there are all the blog friends. All of you amazing people out there who didn't even know Regine, but still showed her so much care and warmth. You should know what important support you were to Regine. It was a great comfort to her on her worst days to read all your comments. Thank you to those who set up the Facebook pages to help Regine to overcome the disease and to achieve her dream of making a book. Thank you as well to all those who supported these pages.
Thank you to those who set up the support fund and to everyone who contributed monetarily, both individually and as businesses. A special thank you to Ann Olaug Slatlem, who's updated Regine's photos and who made it possible for her to set up and sell her photos at the Nordic Lights photo festival. All the proceeds went into the benefit account. Also a special thank you to Beltespenner who made a clothing line with Anne Marthe and Regine after being urged to do so by Line Victoria, and who donated the sales profits to the benefit account. For so long we were hoping that Regine would improve from the treatment and could use the money for a new transplant, but that didn't happen. At Regine's request, 240,000 crowns were donated to blood cancer research at the Radium Hospital; flatscreen TVs were also provided to the bone marrow transplant unit at the National Hospital; and 20,000 crowns were given to fellow cancer patient Espen Steen, who has to buy his own medications. So all the contributions were put to good use or donated to a good cause.
Thank you to the Gyldendal publishing company and editor Bjorn Olav Jahr for all his help with Regine's book.
Lastly we want to thank everyone for all their concern and supportive phone calls, emails, letters, gifts, flowers, and greetings both to us and Regine. They warmed us all. Thank you also to understanding employers and to everyone else who we know thought a lot about us.
We've been through some really intense times and there's more still ahead, but the days come and go whether we want them to or not, and you just have to try to participate in regular life again, even though it's not easy. Elise, Lasse, and I need to remember what we promised Regine before she died: that we'll take care of ourselves. Her biggest worry when she died was that the family would be torn apart. Regine recorded a voice message on my cell phone that she wanted us to listen to after she died. She said that she loved us, that we were the world's best parents, and that she couldn't have had a better childhood. She had so many great memories, and she regretted that there wouldn't be more of them. But she hoped we'd manage to enjoy life together—because that's what's important: to take care of the days you have on earth. And then she said we had to take good care of Josefine. We all have to try as hard as we can to do what she wanted. We have to be thankful for our good health, and use it to do the things we enjoy in our lives—things that aren't possible for a lot of people.
My thoughts go out to all of those struggling with serious illnesses. I really sympathize with you and know the fight you are fighting and really hope you'll win in the end; you all deserve it.
It's so sad that the most beautiful flowers are picked first, but I'm incredibly proud of having been the mother of one of them.
Julianne, Regine, and Lasse
After Regine's death, Lasse and Julianne found this poem (undated) on Regine's computer:
My path has only one direction
There are no signs
And there is no map
It's impossible to go to the left or the right
It's impossible to turn
I can only go straight ahead
But the road is crooked
It's neither light nor dark in front of me
There's fog
And no one knows what
Will be found on the other side
1 Poem appears on the facing page.
About the translator
Henriette Larsen grew up in Switzerland and the U.S. speaking Norwegian at home. She has fond memories of beautiful summers (but no winters) in Norway. She earned a Bachelor's degree in French Literature from Pomona College and completed graduate coursework in French and Comparative Literature at SFSU. She lives in San Francisco.
If you liked Regine's Book: A Teen Girl's Last Words, you might also like Dear Teen Me: Authors write Letters to Their Teen Selves by Miranda Kenneally and E. Kristin Anderson.
Growing pains are an essential part of teenage life, for better and for worse. Some “mistakes” turn into positive, life-changing experiences, and some apparent triumphs seem, in retrospect, like low points. Some first kisses leave you feeling on top of the world, and others can make you want to hide under a rock. In Dear Teen Me, your favorite YA authors—including Lauren Oliver, Ellen Hopkins, Tom Angleberger, and Carrie Jones—revisit critical moments from their young lives and offer advice and guidance to their teenage selves. So pick a page, and find out….
• Who had a really bad first kiss?
• Who found her true love at 18?
• Who wishes she’d had more fun in high school instead of studying so hard?
• And who skipped prom to go to a Grateful Dead concert, only to wind up stranded and alone?
The letters cover a wide range of topics, including physical abuse, body issues, bullying, friendship, love, and enough insecurities to fill an auditorium. Some authors focus on a hilarious mistake or one especially big day, others offer words of hope for desperate times, and a few graphic novelists even turn their stories into visual art. So whether you’re a theater kid, a band geek, a bad boy, a good girl, a loner, a stoner, a nerd, or a jock, you’ll find friends—and a lot of familiar faces—in Dear Teen Me.
Keep reading to preview a sample of Dear Teen Me: Authors write Letters to Their Teen Selves...
WANT. TAKE. HAVE.
E. Kristin Anderson
Dear Teen Me,
We spend most mornings writing in our diary. Not the fun diary that you share with friends. Not the one where you draw pictures of Hanson and Foo Fighters and analyze the Grammys. I’m talking about the one where you write about how scared you are that we’ll never find THE ONE, and about how fighting with your mom is wearing you out, and how you’re grossed out by sex, and how desperately, how insanely you want to date John O’Bleary*.
You barely know John O’Bleary. He transferred to your school during sophomore year, and now he’s the goalie for the hockey team. The team your brother plays for. The team your dad coaches. And, yes, your dad actually told his players that if they tried to date you they’d be “riding the pine pony” indefinitely.
But Dad would have made an exception for John. He’s different from the other hockey guys. And sometimes he and Dad talk about you on the team bus. So now you’re convinced that you and John O’Bleary are going to ride off into the sunset in whatever car he drives (like I said, you barely know him) and get married and have adorable O’Bleary babies.
So just about every entry in your journal is about John O’Bleary. I mean, you’re probably writing about him right now, as the sun finishes coming up. I bet there’s a cup of Raspberry Zinger herbal tea cooling on your nightstand next to a half-eaten bagel slathered in cream cheese. You have a whole routine: wake up, shower, make breakfast, crawl back into bed (with your breakfast), and write in your diary. Don’t even try to deny it. You’re about to start another entry about how today is the day you’re going to talk to John.
In fact, there are eleventy billion entries of pure O’Bleary pining. I could transcribe a page word for word, but I’d hate to betray your confidence. After all, we swore to ourselves we would never share THAT journal with anyone; we fear the damage its publication could wreak upon our impending fame. (We don’t want our adoring public to know that we’re so shallow we only ever write about boys.) Anyway, that’s what the other journal’s for: sharing fun stuff with friends and illustrating, on a frame-by-frame basis, our delusions of grandeur.
You have a bedtime diary ritual, too. At night you crawl under the covers, pull out one of your metallic Gelly Roll pens, and woefully scribble into the same pages that you filled with hope that very morning. It goes like this:
I didn’t talk to John today. [Insert explanation here.] I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I just know that there’s something between us. There’s a reason he transferred into school when he did. And he told Dad [insert anecdote here]. Why can’t I just talk to him? I’m going to regret it if I don’t. This shouldn’t be so hard. But it is.
Tomorrow I’m going to talk to John O’Bleary.
And so it goes, time and time again…until: You know that dance that’s coming up? The Sadie Hawkins dance, where girls are supposed to ask the boys? (As if you haven’t asked your date to every other dance, you inadvertent feminist, you.) Well, you’re going to go up to John and ask him to go to the dance with you. Flat out. And he’s going to say that someone else just asked him—it’s a girl you’re kind of friends with, and one of the only popular girls who’s never picked on you. So you can’t even hate her. Worse still, John is so freaking nice that he asks you to save him a dance.
You never do get that dance. But here’s the thing: you weren’t supposed to.
I was home for Christmas in 2010, sitting on the sofa at Nini’s house (yes, we still call our grandmother Nini), when she announced that John O’Bleary was marrying that very same girl who asked him to the dance not half an hour before you did. And in that moment, I couldn’t help wondering what it would have been like to be Mrs. O’Bleary.
Teen Me, don’t let this crush you. As I write this today, I can’t help but feel lucky that I’m not Mrs. O’Bleary. I’m in love right now with someone else entirely, hundreds of miles from chez O’Bleary
But even knowing that, I still want you to ask John to that dance. You wrote in your secret journal that you didn’t want to be thirty and look back with regrets. You were sure that if you didn’t ask John out, you would always wonder, “What if?” I’m almost thirty now, and thanks to you, I have no what-ifs. So, asking John out? Yeah, I think we can say with certainty that it was a good idea. (Even though the journal entry from that evening says something like: Well, stamp an R on my forehead and throw me in the Reject bin!)
You’re not a reject, Teen Me. You’re brave. When you think back on that moment later on, you’ll feel pride, more than anything else: pride, because you’re the kind of girl who has the cojones to ask for what she wants.
You’re setting a high standard for yourself as an adult. For me. You already know what you want and you ask for it without hesitation. Okay, maybe with a little hesitation—the journal proves that—but I love that you dare not only to dream, but to believe in those dreams, whatever the cost. I mean, it will be about three years before you realize that you’re not going to be a rock star in this lifetime, but you’re never, ever going to be afraid to (poorly) sing karaoke. And sure, you’re not poet laureate (yet), but you’re going to publish a lot of great poems in actual magazines because you will actually put those poems in the mail and send them out into the world. And no matter how many times you get your heart broken, you’ll keep on believing in love.
Asking John O’Bleary to the Sadie Hawkins dance was about so much more
than getting rejected by the boy of your dreams; it was about setting the pace for the rest of your life. You already believe in something Faith will say on Buffy the Vampire Slayer: “Want, take, have!” And while you’re not going to use this for evil quite the way she did, you’re going to wear your heart on your sleeve and pursue impossible goals and take inadvisable risks. Because it’s the only way you know how to be you.
But I think you’ve already got a sense of this—even on bad days, when you feel like you have eighty R’s on your forehead (like the day when you realize that, whoa, there’s no cure for bipolar disorder; or all the times when you want to hide until school, and your parents, and the mean girls disappear). Pretty soon you’re going to realize that “It works if you work it” is more than a Taylor Hawkins quote (from that new magazine Nylon). “It works if you work it” are words to live by, and you’re already on top of it. So don’t change a damn thing.
*Name not-so-elusively changed to protect the bashful.
Regine's Book Page 25