Three Months After Losing Her Father
Three months after my husband died, our house still felt unbearably quiet.
Cancer had taken him slowly.
First came the treatments.
Then the weakness.
Then the endless hospital visits.
And finally, the goodbye none of us were ready for.
The hardest part wasn’t losing him myself.
It was watching our twelve-year-old daughter, Letty, lose her hero.
She adored her father.
When he became sick, she spent every possible moment beside him, reading books aloud, bringing him blankets, and making silly drawings to keep him smiling.
When chemotherapy caused his hair to fall out, she cried herself to sleep.
I remember her sitting on the edge of his hospital bed after he shaved his head.
“Dad,” she asked quietly, “does it hurt?”
He smiled and rubbed his bald scalp.
“No, sweetheart.”
“But everybody will stare.”
“Maybe.”
“Weren’t you scared?”
He thought for a moment.
“A little.”
Then he pointed at his chest.
“But the people who love me still see me right here.”
Letty never forgot those words.
Neither did I.
