Watching my 17-year-old daughter battle leukemia was the hardest thing I had ever faced as a mother.
I thought the surprise waiting in her hospital room would be the most emotional part of that night, but I was wrong. The cup of hospital coffee in my hand had gone cold hours earlier, yet I still held it like it was the only thing keeping me steady. Six months had passed since the word leukemia entered our lives. My daughter, Carol, was only seventeen, and I was a single mother trying to smile through fear no smile could truly hide. Hospitalroom decor
Before she got sick, Carol dreamed about prom for years. She used to cut pictures of dresses from magazines and tape them to her bedroom mirror. “Mom,” she would say, “promise you’ll do my hair that night.” I always promised her I would. Now chemotherapy had taken her hair, and those magazine pictures still waited at home like pieces of a life she was supposed to have.
One afternoon, I sat beside her hospital bed while she slept. The latest treatment had left her weaker than before. Her face looked thinner, her hands smaller. Beside her was a leather journal I had bought her months earlier. She wrote in it every day and often tucked folded letters between the pages. When I leaned over to adjust her pillow, she woke and quickly slid the journal under her blanket. Hospitalroom decor
“Sorry, sweetheart. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
