Watching my daughter battle an illness at 17 was the hardest thing I’d ever faced as a mother. I thought the surprise waiting in her hospital room would be the most emotional part of the night, but I was wrong.
The Promise
The hospital coffee in my hand had gone cold an hour ago, yet I kept holding it as if it were the only solid thing left in my life.
Six months had passed since the word “leukemia” entered our living room and refused to leave. My daughter, Carol, was 17 years old, and I was a single mother who had learned to smile through things no smile should ever have to cover.
Carol used to cut pictures of dresses from magazines and tape them to her bedroom mirror.
“Mom, promise you’ll do my hair that night,” she’d say, even back when she was in the fifth grade.
“I promise, baby. I’ll do your hair for every prom you ever have.”
Now her hair was gone, but those magazine pictures were still taped to the mirror at home, waiting.
That afternoon, I sat beside her hospital bed and watched her sleep.
The latest round of chemotherapy had hollowed Carol out in a way the previous treatments hadn’t. Her cheekbones looked sharper. Her hands looked smaller.
On the rolling tray beside her sat a leather journal I had bought her in February. She wrote in it every day. Alongside it were letters carefully folded into thirds and addressed in her looping handwriting to names I recognized from her class.
When I leaned over to fluff her pillow, Carol stirred and quickly slid the journal beneath her blanket.
“Sorry, honey. Didn’t mean to startle you,” I quickly apologized.
“It’s fine, Mom.” She gave me her tired smile. “Just girl stuff.”
I nodded as though I understood. Teenagers needed privacy, even sick ones. Maybe especially sick ones.
A moment later, Carol’s phone buzzed on the tray. The name Daryl lit up the screen before she turned it face down.
Daryl had been her best friend since middle school. He was the kind of boy who held doors open and remembered birthdays.
“He’s checking on you again?”
“He’s just being Daryl.”
