An Open Letter to Hazel Grace Lancaster (SPOILER ALERT!!!!!)

You don`t have to read it if you don`t want to

Hello, Hazel,

 I believe that you have never heard about me, but I know everything about you. Actually, you must know something about me, since you have put my own thoughts in a paper and this is the reason why I feel that I need to write something back to you.

Do you remember how you feel about An Imperial Affliction? Well, that is almost the same I felt about The Fault in Our Stars. It’s like life, or God, or destiny, wants me to learn from you because I have watched the movie three times without planning any of them!

 My name is Ana and I live in Brazil (Sorry for my English). My disease, thankfully, is just Chron's which is far better than advanced lung cancer. I feel sorry for you and I don't want to compare our problems (Yours is much bigger), just want to say that I understand you in some way and that if you existed you could count on me as a distant but good friend.

 You must be thinking why I'm not writting it in Spanish. First, because it seems nobody knows but in Brazil we speak Portuguese. The second reason isn't that I expect John Green to answer me someday thanking me for how much I loved his book. Especially because he has already warned all his fans that he is the real Peter Van Houten and I don't really need to do all my way from Brazil to the U.S. just for him to tell me that I'm an evolution experiment that failed. I already know that. 

The reason why I'm writing in English is that I hope my dad and aunts and grandmas won't be able to read this. I confess that the moment I fell in love with you was when you said that the only thing worse than being sick is to have sick children. I totally agree. I'm always trying to not complain about the lots of terrible exams and the pain (That is getting better, thanks to God, but still exists) when I'm with them but they still doing things they don't need to do for me and I hate it!

 Not when they help. I like help. What really hurts me are the promises they make. They spend months, years without coffee or alcohol or rebuild the church so God will cure me. I appreciate their prays, I really do, I pray myself, but I feel guilty when they suffer to make God hear them.

 There are three important things that they don't know: First, that God will hear us anyway. He will help if He can, He always does. And if you would like to thank Him you should help someone in need and not hurt yourself. The second is that there is no real cure. Yet. Actually, they know that, but they like pretending that don't. Thus, they should stop worrying that much and understand that although I'm not completely healthy, I'm as healthy as possible. And the third and most important, they don't know that is possible to live with pain.

 I haven't cried when I read your book or saw the movie. People thought that it was because I'm heartless. It's a good explanation. But I believe that I haven't cried because I have lived most of that and although it was sad and hurt a lot, it IS possible to live with pain. And I knew you could do that. We always can. You cry, a little or a lot, you may change forever, but you just keep going because it's the right thing to do.

 Oh my God, there is so much I want to say! I could steal Augustus quote and say that now my thoughts are stars that I cannot fathom into constellations! Well, let's start with him then. I must say that I know him. Like, in real life. Terribly self-confident, passionate about metaphors and absolutely not afraid to say what is in his mind. And I'm happy to say that in my world he is not a Christmas tree. Not even a firefly. And no, I'm not in love with him. I may be getting without noticing, slowly, but definitely not at once. I’m happy enough if we stay friends forever.

Oh! I have just noticed that I haven’t told you what is Crohn! Do you know? If you don't, my intestine sucks at being an intestine like your lungs suck at being lungs. It means that I’m in need of almost all the nutrients in the world, including iron, what makes me anaemic and that is why I suck at breathing too. Yes, I also have a problem going upstairs. Not as much as you, but I could be your breath catching buddy. And I’m always begging my intestine to not ruin my life as it has done sometimes.

I had a dream too. And it also involved a trip. I wanted to study English abroad. My first plan was to spend a month in Brighton, England. I worked for an entire year saving each coin I earned and had to fight (a lot) to convince my father and my doctor that I could do it. It was alright, all paid and two weeks before my flight I had the worst Crohn`s crisis of my life! My intestine closed, I had to do a surgery and my trip was cancelled. Sounds familiar to you? Don’t be sad! I had a happy ending too! After the surgery, I was much better and then they let me go to Australia for one entire year! I had to carry my medicines and people in the hostels and airports were always curious about my ice boxes, but I was fine. I’ve just came back.

As you can see, we have a lot in common. But the reason why I’m writing to you, besides to let you know that you have a Brazilian and less sick version, is what we not have in common. One of my cousins started reading The Fault in Our Stars a little after me and before the middle of the story, she told me that she was loving the book because you reminded her of me. And then, when she finished she told me that she didn’t like it anymore because you’re too pessimist and I’m not.

I think that you have more reasons to be pessimist than I do and I understand that. And I think that you must be more positive in real life than in the book, because the book is your head and in our heads we don’t have to pretend we are happy when we are talking about bad things, like we have when we are trying to not hurt our loved ones. My cousin can’t understand you because she is completely healthy and don’t know that you can think sad things without being a sad person, especially when these sad things are just the truth. She doesn’t have sad truths to think about. (She will hate me after this letter)

Believe me when I say that I understand you. But I agree that you could be a little more optimistic, even inside your head. I, different from John Green and Van Houten, believe in a life after book and I think that you must already have understood that, most because of Gus, but I still have to say. Don’t think that you’re just a grenade. That everything will end someday, there won’t be no one to remember even our heroes when the sun blows the Earth out of the Universe and that our lives mean nothing. I just want you to know that our lives worth a lot, even if just for a few people. You are worth to mine. It’s just that sometimes we are more deeply than widely loved and both are perfectly fine. Every single person exists for one reason, every single moment happens for one reason and I truly believe that it will all make sense in an afterlife, be it however it is. We may not be remembered in a few years, when all our loved ones will have died but the moments we live happily together should worth all the pain that comes with this life and you must make it infinite. Doens’t matter if there will be infinities bigger than yours. Okay?

                                       Sincerely,

                                                                Ana