Tomorrow should have been just an ordinary day like any other on the calendar.
But for this family, tomorrow carries the burden of everything.
Tomorrow is the ultrasound appointment.
A day when people felt a heavy weight in their hearts long before sunrise.
A day like that makes hope seem fragile, something you have to hold onto with trembling hands.
Will is just a child.
A child whose body has learned too much about pain, hospitals, needles, and words no parent wants to hear.
The results of the previous scan were alarming.
The cancer had spread almost throughout the little boy’s body, creeping through places that were once healthy and innocent.
The doctors spoke very carefully, choosing their words to strike a balance between honesty and compassion.
The treatment plan has changed.
It is no longer a powerful chemotherapy treatment aimed at destroying cancer cells.
Now it’s a chemotherapy pill.
This pill is not intended to cure or eliminate the monster, but simply to slow its growth.
To prevent its spread.
That was the prayer at the time.
Cancer cannot be eradicated overnight by magic.
This isn’t for dramatic transformations that only happen in fairy tales.
We just need to stop the spread.
It’s just a matter of time.
Every day his mother prayed the same words.
Words were the ones she clung to as if they were oxygen.
“Thank God for healing Will and destroying all the cancer cells in his body.”
She spoke even though her voice trembled.
She still uttered those words even as fear screamed more intensely in her mind.
She absolutely refused to say anything more.
Because uttering words of complete healing was the only way she knew to survive.
With faith forged through suffering, she believed that her God was greater than cancer itself.
Larger than the scanned image.
Statistics are more important than anything else.
It was even greater than the fear that crept into the quiet hours of the late night.
That day was very long.
It took longer than she expected.
The work dragged on slowly, riddled with minor annoyances that felt unnecessarily burdensome.
Her personal difficulties piled up, and no one around her noticed.
By the time she left, there was no time left to go home.
There wasn’t time to change clothes.
She drove straight to the church, still wearing her uniform, exhaustion weighing heavily on her shoulders.
She arrived thirty minutes late.
Each step down the aisle made her feel more and more lost.
She seemed out of place, amidst the calm faces and familiar songs.
It was as if she were carrying a burden that no one else could see.
But she still sat down.
Because when everything seems to be falling apart, sometimes the only thing you can do is be present.
As the ceremony ended and people began to move and pray, Will leaned toward her.
His voice was soft but firm.
“Mom, I’m going to go to the altar to pray.”
She looked at him, surprised by his calmness.
I was amazed by his courage.
She followed Will and Jason as they moved forward.
When she placed her hand on Will’s back, something inside her changed.
Her prayer began as usual.
Fear.
You.
Despair enveloped everyone.
But then something unexpected happened.
Her heart softened.
