What horrible stories we tell our children. We tell them to pray to God every night, just in case they don’t wake up. We lull them to sleep with the thought of falling to their doom. Then there are the monsters, hiding in the closet and under the bed waiting in the darkness to steal them away. Maybe we lie to them to prepare them for the truth. The truth that if there is a God, he doesn’t listen to us anymore. He has become bored with us and has moved on. So if we do die in our sleep there will be no one waiting to take us to heaven. The truth that falling from that bough is nothing compared to the pain you will endure if you don’t. The truth that the monsters aren’t under the bed. They are in the next room, telling us lies to keep us in check. Narcissistically creating mini copies of themselves and hating us when we are not like them, but hating us more when we are. And finally, my truth, that there was no pumpkin growing inside me, only Prader-Willi Syndrome – a disease that promised that I would never know satisfaction, that I would never be like anyone else. That I would never be full.

As I said before, I grew up on a pumpkin farm. Because of that, Halloween was for me what Christmas is for most kids. Autumn was our season. It was when our family had the most money. It was when we spent the most time together. The most important events of my life took place in the autumn.   I was born in the autumn and I am almost certain I shall die in the autumn. The first time I saw her was on Halloween. Kristina Moore, the girl that would forever set my standard of beauty, the only girl that I would ever love...the only girl that would ever love me. 

We were both eight when she wandered into my world.   I no longer looked pregnant, I had established my role as the fat kid among my peers and for that I was grateful.  I found it was easier to be seen as lazy and overweight than a freak with a disorder.   Children don’t understand the concept of pity, but maybe that is for the best.   Whenever I think of Kristina, I see her as I did that first night in my field tromping through the rows of pumpkins, her white silky dress blowing back and forth against her legs. Her cardboard wings remained stationary, yet the golden halo attached to her head bobbed up and down as she concentrated on each pumpkin trying to decide which one she wanted to take home. 

Most people had come and gone the day before, so Kristina was the only person in the field other than myself.   When she had finally noticed my presence, she looked up at me and smiled. I have found myself defending the reality of love at first sight because of that smile. Her long blonde hair curved at the tip as if it wanted to be closer to her face and her powder blue eyes seemed to glimmer in the darkness. She captured my heart at that very moment and never let it go. I befriended her that very night and discovered she had just moved into town. I was overjoyed to find out that she would be in my class when school started that Monday.

Because we were in such a small town, Kristina had trouble fitting in at first. We all knew one another and we had all been taught to be wary of strangers. But as time passed, her charm and beauty conquered even the most distant children and she was one of us before we ever got to the fifth grade. She could have easily been one of the most popular girls in school, if only she hung with the right people. But she chose my morbidly obese company over theirs, at least until we became teenagers.

Once we all started high school, our roles and cliques became more defined. People I had known for years, yet never spent time with, were now calling me friend because for one reason or another we were social outcasts. There was no shame in it. It was who we were and we were happy. Kristina was happy too, at least when it came to hanging with us. But she chose her dates from separate circles, the jocks, the preppies, the rebels.   None of it lasted of course because she would never leave her circle and they would never leave theirs. So she got what she wanted - some young man’s love and affection, without ever having to give anything up.

I can’t say I wasn’t jealous. I was. But I had long ago decided that no one in their right mind would ever desire me as anything other than a friend, so I accepted Kristina’s friendship and asked for nothing more. Well at least I tried.  I even succeeded until we were fifteen, but it was a night of pumpkin carving that finally destroyed my resolve.

“Pumpkin, can you bring me a smaller knife?” She yelled to me from the living room while I was in the kitchen fixing something to eat. Because of my mother’s cruel sense of humor my real name was Peter Jackson. But because my teachers always called me PJ and the kids remembered me as “that kid that sells pumpkins” when Kristina started calling me Pumpkin, it caught on and now I think even my mother has forgotten my Christian name.

After thirty minutes of work, I had made a wonderfully hideous monster while Kristina’s Jack-o-Lantern looked as sweet and inviting as she did. I frowned at her work.

I don’t know what made me do it, but as she stood there with a carving knife still in her hand, I leaned in and kissed her.   I was shocked by my own actions, but I was even more shocked by hers. She dropped the knife and kissed me back. Passionately. Like she had wanted to do this for years, as much as I had. Then she stopped, looked into my eyes and walked away. I chased after her and apologized. Then she apologized. Then we both apologized. Once we realized we were getting nowhere with the apologies we decided to talk. I figured she would never want a relationship with me because she thought I was unattractive. When she told me I was the most beautiful person she knew, I was very confused as to why we weren’t running off to elope that very second.

She offered to explain why she wouldn’t date me even though she had strong feelings for me, but she assured me I would not like the truth. This was the moment I learned that when someone offers you the ugly truth, don’t take it. It can only sully the beautiful lie that is innocence. But I was stupid and I asked her to tell me. She explained that she could not date me because people would think there was something wrong with her if she did. She was right. I did not like her answer at all. She should have stuck with the classic “I don’t want to ruin our friendship” excuse. No one thinks you are a shallow slut when you say that.

I was both hurt and angry, so I asked her to leave my house. As she was walking down the stairs, she collapsed. I ran to her aid and yelled for my mom. She came running out the door, helped me to pick her up, and we rushed her to the hospital. A few days later she was informed that she had leukemia.   No matter how hard you try, you can’t be mad at someone with cancer. Radiation therapy was hard on everyone. Her parents hated to see their baby girl so sick, so they decided to keep a safe distance. She pushed her friends away.  She could not stand the look in their eyes. A look I knew so well, I got it every time I told someone I had PWS. It was pity.

Being a broken soul myself, I never gave my sweet Kristina that look. Even when all her hair fell out, I looked at her with nothing but love. I was at her house every day and each time she went to the hospital, I was by her side. Within a year she was her old self again. She was done with chemo and her hair had already grown back past her chin. Coming so close to death didn’t take a bit of the gait out of her step, and she still lit up any room she entered with her loving smile and infectious laughter.

“Oh, why didn’t you tell me about it?” I asked, hurt that there was some new man in her life that she felt she could not tell me about.

She never answered that question. She just leaned in and kissed me, right in the middle of the hall. The corridor was filled with people who for a moment paused in shock, but then began clapping and cheering as someone exclaimed, “Pumpkin’s got a girlfriend!” I felt like I was in one of those 80s movies.  Kristina and I snuck off to class, our faces red with embarrassment.

The night of the dance was both the greatest and worst night of my life. I dressed as an overweight Darth Vader while Kristina came down the stairs and greeted me in her sparkling white flowing robe, and huge life-like wings. I flashed back to our first encounter as I watched her descend her dark oak staircase. But now her eyes had grown into a more fierce shade of blue and her beauty had multiplied ten fold. Had I died at that moment, it would have been in perfect bliss.

To say that that Halloween was a night to remember would be an understatement. There I was with all my friends, some of the greatest and most interesting people I have ever known and I had the girl of my dreams on my arm. The dinner was a delicious meal of baked chicken with broccoli and carrots. And the music was perfect. We all spent the entire evening dancing. The DJ knew exactly when to play a slow song. I engraved the feeling of Kristina in my arms into my memory forever. I can close my eyes anywhere and remember that night as if I was back there. That dance. How beautiful she was. How good her hair smelled. How close she held me.

After the dance we decided to get together at my house and watch movies all night. My parents were kind enough to rent a hotel room in the city allowing me to have my first co-ed slumber party. I left Kristina in my room to change into her nightgown while I took my pajamas into the bathroom. As I was changing I heard her mumble something through the thick walls of the old house. I asked her to repeat what she had said but when she didn’t I answer I dismissed the point as trivial and decided to ask her later.

I thought when Kristina had finished with her chemo it meant she had been cured. I was wrong. What power could modern medicine have to cure an angel? As a people we have come so far. We can travel through space and hold conversations with strangers on the other side of the world, but when it comes to our bodies we are mere amateurs.  All we can do is cut and burn the offending parts and hope for the best. But what happens when there is nothing left to cut and burn? We die.