My Daughter Finally Rang the Bell After Finishing Chemotherapy – But as We Were Leaving the Hospital, Her Doctor Rushed After Us and Said, 'Wait! There's Something You Needed to Know. I Couldn't Keep It a Private Matter Any Longer'
As a single mother, I learned very quickly that there wasn't time to fall apart.
So every night, after she fell asleep, I locked myself inside the hospital bathroom. I'd sit on the closed toilet lid and cry for exactly five minutes.
Then I'd wash my face. Smile in the mirror. Walk back into her room.
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She never knew.
***
One afternoon during her second round of chemotherapy, I returned from one of those bathroom visits.
Martha looked at me over the top of her coloring book.
"You cried again."
I'd sit on the closed toilet lid and cry.
I froze. "What makes you think that?"
"Your nose gets pink."
I tried to laugh. "It does not."
"It does." She patted the empty space beside her. "Come here."
I sat carefully on the edge of the bed. She reached up and wiped away the tear I'd missed beneath my eye.
"We'll beat this, Mom." Her voice was soft. "You'll see."
Sometimes I honestly wondered which one of us was raising the other.
"We'll beat this, Mom."
The nurses adored her.
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Martha wasn't always cheerful. Some days she screamed after another needle or cried over the hair she'd lost. She was still a little girl.
But somehow... she never stayed broken for long.
One morning I found her sitting cross-legged on her bed, drawing something with fierce concentration.
"What are you making, darling?"
"Birthday cards."
"It isn't your birthday."
She looked at me as though I'd missed something obvious. "They're for Nurse Angela."
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