Not again.

"There wasn't a day went by over the past four years that Merbein's Page McCarthy-Beard wasn't in pain because of the cancer that was slowly taking over her body.

The lively, friendly and lovely teen was in and out of hospitals, underwent hundreds of tests in Mildura, Adelaide and Melbourne, including chemotherapy, lost her beautiful long hair, and then a leg.

But there wasn't a day go by that this bubbly girl didn't have a smile on her face, or a thank you to family, friends and hospital staff for all the help she was getting. She was a fighter, determined to fulfill her dream of one day becoming a journalist.

Sadly, just a few months after her 18th birthday, Paige this week lost the fight. She passed away at the Mary Potter hospice in Adelaide at 10pm Tuesday, with family members who had shared the highs and lows of her young life by her side."

-Mildura Weekly 2/7/10, Alan Erskine

I can only really say one thing - not again. Merbein is a half-hour drive from where I live. First was Josh (who the community has mostly seemed to have forgotten about, or maybe it's just too painful), suffering from aggressive, malignant osteosarcoma of his thigh bone, and next is poor Paige, who suffered from an extremely aggressive nerve-ending cancer.

[Take a breath
I pull myself together
Just another step
Until I reach the door]

I don't understand at all. Why is it the kids? Isn't it hard enough that our uncles and aunts and grandparents and parents suffer from this (and we partially expect it because cancer is associated with the elderly), but then they rob us of our friends and siblings too? Who's they? Angels? Demons? Our own malignant cancer cells?

I want to believe. But I can't understand what a child has done that's so wrong it's punishable by death in anybody's eyes. I want to know who's responsible and at the same time I know it's nobody. Nobody can be blamed for her death. You can't blame the doctors, they did their best. You can't blame her body, it malfunctioned. You can't blame her parents, they sacrificed it all for her treatment. You can't blame the community, they rallied around her like a force field.

[And you'll never know the way
It tears me up inside to see you
Sometimes I wish I could save you
And there's so many things I want you to know]

God, if you're there, please tell them we miss them.

the milk bottle. (: