10/22/2026
THIS:
I hate you, cancer.
I hate you for the mother you turned me into. For the things you’ve made me see, the things you’ve made me do, and the things you’ve made me live with. I hate that I know what it feels like to stand beside a hospital bed and wonder how much more my little girl’s body can possibly take. I hate that I know what my daughter’s face looks like when she’s in so much pain that being her mommy isn’t enough to make it better.
I hate you for making me afraid of things I never used to think twice about. A headache. A stomachache. A bad night of sleep. Watching my daughter walk across a room. Things other parents can brush off as another part of raising children have become things that can send my mind somewhere I never want to go again.
And I hate you for that because I remember who I was before you.
I remember what it felt like to be a mother whose biggest worries were ordinary ones. I remember being able to plan a birthday party without thinking about whether my daughter would be healthy enough to enjoy it. I remember when the future felt like something I could look forward to without being terrified of what might be waiting in it.
You took that from me. And you took so much more from her.
I hate you for the childhood my daughter had to put on hold while the rest of the world kept moving. While other little girls were getting ready for school, learning new things, and making memories with their friends, mine was learning how to endure things that would bring grown adults to their knees.
I hate you for the hospital bracelets around her little wrists. For the scars on her body. For the medications that became part of our everyday life. For the feeding tubes, the appointments, the sleepless nights, and the pain that didn’t always end when the treatment did.
I hate you for making me watch my daughter lose her hair. Not because hair determines her beauty, but because I knew what was happening to her body. Because I had spent years brushing that hair, washing it, putting it into little ponytails, and listening to her tell me how she wanted it done. I never imagined there would come a day when I would miss something as ordinary as doing my daughter’s hair so badly that even seeing another mother braid her little girl’s hair could hurt.
I hate you because there are pieces of my daughter’s childhood I will never get back. And no matter how much happiness we fill our days with now, I cannot go backward and give her the days you stole.
But what I hate most is what you’ve made normal.
I hate that I’ve stood in pediatric oncology spaces surrounded by children who should have been absolutely anywhere else. Children with swollen faces, tiny bodies, bald heads, feeding tubes, and IV poles following them down hospital hallways. Children who still want to play, who still want their mommies, who still get excited over stickers and toys while enduring treatments that make them terribly sick.
I hate that I’ve learned how to exist in a world where all of that happens.
Where a parent can hear devastating news about their child and, somehow, the next morning still have to wake up, answer questions, sign paperwork, make decisions, and find enough strength to comfort the person they’re most afraid of losing.
I hate that I’ve watched parents carry the kind of fear that should never exist in a room with a child’s name on the door.
And I hate that outside those hospital walls, life goes on as though none of it is happening.
People are arguing about things that won’t matter next week. They’re complaining about inconveniences. They’re making plans for next summer. And meanwhile, families are sitting in hospital rooms praying they’ll get another summer with their child.
I don’t think I’ll ever be able to make peace with that.
Because once you’ve lived in this world, you know too much. You know that some children will never get to ring a bell. You know that some parents will leave those hospitals with belongings they cannot bear to unpack. You know that surviving treatment doesn’t always mean a child gets to return to the life they had before cancer.
You learn that sometimes the very treatments saving a child’s life can leave them struggling for years afterward.
And then you learn how little of the world seems willing to fight to change it.
I hate you, cancer, because you have made me grieve things while being endlessly grateful for the life standing right in front of me.
I can be watching Brynlee laugh and feel like the luckiest mother alive, and hours later find myself crying over something cancer took from her. I can celebrate how far she’s come while carrying so much anger about everything she’s had to endure. I can love the life we have now with every piece of my heart and still desperately wish my little girl had never been forced to fight for it.
That is the part I wish people understood.
Gratitude does not erase grief. Survival does not erase suffering. And watching my daughter grow doesn’t mean I’ve stopped hurting over what happened to her.
I will never understand why a tumor started growing inside my daughter’s brain. Why her little body had to become a battlefield. Why the price of keeping her here had to be so incredibly high.
I will never understand why children are still being asked to endure so much while families are left fighting for research, access to treatment, and the care their children deserve.
And I am angry. Deeply, painfully angry.
Not just for Brynlee, but for every child whose life has been interrupted by this disease. For every parent who has sat in a parking garage crying before pulling themselves together and walking back into the hospital. For every family whose world has been permanently changed while the rest of the world barely noticed.
I wish people could feel this grief for just one minute. Not because I want anyone to suffer, but because I wonder what would change if the world could truly understand what childhood cancer does to a family.
Would we still accept so little? Would we still leave families to fundraise for lifesaving research? Would we still look at these children, call them brave, and then go back to pretending this isn’t happening?
I hate you, cancer.
I hate that you’ve given me memories I would do anything to forget and stolen moments I would do anything to remember.
I hate that I cannot undo a single second of what my daughter went through.
And I hate that even after everything, I still have to share pieces of her future with the damage you’ve left behind.
But more than anything, I hate that somewhere today, another mother is just beginning to understand this kind of grief.
Another little child is about to lose the ordinary life they knew.
Another family is about to learn that loving your child with everything you have cannot protect them from everything.
And the world will keep turning.
That is what breaks my heart. That is what makes me angry. And that is why I will never, ever stop fighting against you.
Because I know what you did to my little girl.
And I know what you’re still doing to somebody else’s.
