Son

The walls were painted with zoo animals of all shapes and sizes. Balloons with “get well” and “feel better” drunkenly drifted back and forth as the once-tight strings that held them closer to the ground were now loose. My son, distracted by the cartoons on my phone, not realizing what was happening to him and why he was in this place to begin with, but I do, and I won't allow him to know; I can't let him know.

My son is the light of my life, and his light shines ever so brightly as he sits there in his giraffe-printed gown that the nurse had given him to wear. They said the mass was too big to do anything, and he only had four months left; it's only been three weeks, and we are back.

I hardly leave the room now; it's been four days of living in this room. First, his mother, now him. What a cruel world, what a cruel universe would bring a child in and just poison him to remove him. The medicine must be getting to him because he says he sees his mother come in to talk to him at night and sing him to sleep, but I've only left the room to get him something to eat or even a new toy to play with. He wouldn’t know who she was; she left our world when he was only two, I wouldn’t think he would remember her face. I ignored it and let him have this, let him experience the joy of his mother coming in and singing to him.

The next morning, he woke me up to tell me about his mom coming to see him again and the song she sang him; the song she sang him was one she used to sing to him when he was born before she became ill. How could he have known the song? It wasn’t one you would hear on the radio. But I ignored it again and continued with my day, ensuring he was comfortable.

Throughout the next two days, he became weaker as the poison took over his body. He talked more about his mother coming to sing him to sleep, and I ignored it. She's gone, she isn’t here.

The next night, he woke me up to tell me mom was here, and she was here to sing to him again and that she was ready to take him home. I smiled and kissed him on the forehead; I pulled him in, holding his weak body, my boy, my son, my light, his light was dimming. He fell asleep in my arms for the last time. Half-dazed when I woke up the next morning, I saw him standing there, holding his mother's hand. She smiled, and he said, "I'm going home, Daddy." Then they were gone.