I CALLED MY MOM WITH MY CANCER DIAGNOSIS BUT SHE SAID SHE WAS BUSY WITH MY SISTER’S FITTINGS

       EPISODE 3✅

My stomach twisted in a way that had nothing to do with chemo. That evening, I moved slowly, my legs heavy with fatigue. Eliia was at the kitchen table drawing a moon with frogs dancing around it.

She looked up at me and asked, “Bad day?”

I nodded. “Yeah, just tired.”

She hesitated. Then she asked, “Do grandma and grandpa know it’s the kind of sick that doesn’t go away fast?”

“I told them,” I said.

She squinted like she was trying to understand something too big.

“Did they forget?”

“I don’t think they wanted to remember.”

She got up and disappeared into her room. When she came back, she was holding one of my hospital papers, an after-visit summary from my oncologist. She held it like it was a letter from the president.

“Maybe they need to see this.”

I sighed and told her it wasn’t her job to fix things. She nodded. But later, I found the paper under her pillow.

The next morning, I caught her writing at the kitchen table with her star topper pen. She folded the note carefully, then slid it into an envelope along with the hospital letter.

“You mailing that?” I asked.

She nodded. “They have to understand.”

I didn’t stop her. Because this wasn’t just about the cancer anymore. It was about what they chose to see and what they chose to ignore. It was about a little girl who watched her mother fight alone and decided that was not okay.

I didn’t know Eliia had already mailed the envelope. It had been a particularly rough chemo day, the kind that made my spine ache like it was splintering from the inside. I came home still in my scrubs, thinking only of sleep.

That’s when I saw her at the kitchen table, sealing an envelope with meticulous care.

“What’s that?” I asked, my voice.

She looked up.

“The letter and my note.”

I sat down slowly, my knees weak and my heart already bracing.

“What did you write, baby?”

She pulled a lined sheet from her backpack. I unfolded it.

Dear grandma and grandpa,

Mom is really sick. She told you and you didn’t help. This is from her doctor. Maybe now you’ll believe it.

Ala

I blinked hard, the words wobbling on the page. I should have told her it wasn’t her job to carry this, that she shouldn’t have had to write what I couldn’t bring myself to say.

But I didn’t because I knew I didn’t have the strength for that kind of lie.

“Did you already send it?” I asked.

She nodded.

“Yesterday on my way home from school, I dropped it in the big blue mailbox by the market.”

I looked at her—10 years old, determined, brave, and so heartbreakingly aware. She had done what I couldn’t. She had forced them to see me.

That night, I lay in bed and stared at the ceiling. I thought about my parents, about the birthdays I spent waiting for their calls, the holidays where I watched them lean into Madison while barely acknowledging me.

And now I was fighting for my life and they were budgeting for flowers and violinists.

The email had said, “It would mean a lot if you could help make her day special. She’s always looked up to you,” looked up to me, but not enough to ask how I was doing.

I turned my head and looked at Eliia fast asleep beside me with one hand curled around her frog plushy. She didn’t look scared. She looked peaceful, like someone who had done what she could and left the rest to settle.

  TBC….