PHS Teen Writes ‘Fictionalized Truth’ to Cope With Brother Matthew’s Death

It’s isn’t every day that a 14-year-old pens a novel about breaking from reality to cope with the illness of a treasured sibling. Then again, it’s isn’t every day something sadly similar happens in real life.

In what she refers to as a “fictionalized truth,” Emily Beaver wrote Slipping Reality to honor her brother, Matthew, who at 14 was diagnosed with Ewing’s Sarcoma―a rare bone cancer that would take his life three years later.

The book explores the life of a teenage girl who retreats into the safety of her imagination as her brother’s health progressively deteriorates. Emily says it’s the story she “wanted to live” when she found out her brother was going to die, but couldn’t.

“Deep down, I knew the right thing to do would be to support him through that transition, regardless of the consequences to me, but that didn’t stop it from being so hard,” said Emily, now a senior at Poway High School.

Beaver says the hardest part was seeing her brother―her biggest fan since she started writing in third grade―transform into someone who was “incoherent, weak and constantly drifting in and out of sleep.”

“I didn’t want to be around him, but felt obligated because I knew I’d never see him again,” Emily said. “I stopped going to school eventually, and I wouldn’t leave the house because I didn’t know when his time would come.”

Emily—whose writing also appeared in Chicken Soup for the Soul: The Cancer Book—published Slipping Reality last year―2 1/2 years after Matthew died. She says book No. 2 was never part of the plan, but admits she’s currently working on another story.

“But who knows where my life will take me?” she said. “Writing will always be a part of me because that's what keeps me living. But I have other passions and other dreams I hope to achieve, and I want my life to be an adventure.”