Unity

We are only as  strong as we are united, as weak as we are divided.

[J.K. Rowling]

Times are tough, they are even tougher if you go through them by yourself. In the Poem Viking Warrior thirteen young boys Unite together as one. The boys all support this one boy as he is diagnosed with cancer, they go through the hardship together united as a whole. The way the poem describes it, it seems almost like they are all fighting the disease together. In the Poem Viking Warrior the author talks about how one of the boys is out of school for weeks and the other 13 boys can’t figure out why. And then the rumors get out, and all the boys are whispering the name of the disease; Cancer.

"Totally bald in a jacket and tie on Friday morning and I don’t just mean Tony Steinberg not one single boy in my class had hair that day;

the other 12 had all shaved their heads in solidarity. Have you ever seen 13 bald-headed seventh grade boys, all pointing at each other, all staring, all laughing? I have. And it’s a beautiful sight."

[Viking Warrior Poem]

What one boy may go through on his own the whole class goes through united together, until the end. The boys together unite and make the best of the circumstances. Instead of teasing the boy with the disease, they make him feel like he's just another happy normal boy, like everyone else in the class. Sometimes fear, of death mainly makes us push ill people away. Maybe because of the fear of losing someone close to you. Funny because we should be making the best of the time we have left with them, and that is exactly what these boys did. They united together and made the most of the time they had left. Then when worst comes to worst and the boy with cancer dies, together the others hand in hand mourn his death, torn up on the inside, but knowing that they had made the best of it, that they still were united and that they still had eachother.