For weeks, this had become my routine. Every morning I found myself sitting in Owen’s bedroom, surrounded by his textbooks, sneakers, baseball cards, and everything else he had left behind. The room wasn’t empty.
It was painfully full of memories.
Sometimes I could still picture him standing in the kitchen, laughing as he flipped a pancake too high and watched it land half on the stove. That was the last morning I ever saw my son alive.
He looked tired, but he smiled anyway.
When I asked if he had been sleeping enough, he rolled his eyes and laughed.
« Mom, stop worrying so much. »
Owen had spent the previous two years fighting cancer.
Charlie, my husband, and I had convinced ourselves he was finally going to beat it. Every appointment seemed to bring a little more hope.
