I feel so empty inside, as if I have nothing left. I have bled my last drops, and tears will no longer flow freely down my cheeks as they did just a day before. I do believe my heart must have completely ripped into two; I can’t even feel its stuttering beats anymore. It matches that of the child who lies in the casket.

A child of a free spirit, she was like me in numerous ways, but as for looks, a complete copy of her father. She would run to me, beg me to play just one more game after the first twenty. Her sparkling blue eyes always seemed to sense when I needed comfort the most. She would always be there, almost as if I were the child and she the mother.

I immensely enjoyed the countless hours I spent braiding her silky black hair. Every night we would read a story together, and after I would sing her to sleep. Such a loving child was my little girl. She was slow enough to anger that some people believed she possessed no temper whatsoever.

Playing outside one day, I finally began to worry over the cough that just wouldn’t go away and the long hours she spent sleeping. She had collapsed in a ball, too weak to move. My husband and I rushed her into the emergency room within half an hour. After eighteen ceaseless hours of waiting, we finally received the news that our precious little girl had six months to live.

Everything changed after that. All of my spare time was devoted to begging God not to take my child. There was no more playing and running about; she slept most of her remaining time away. Her hugs were no longer comforting; they only reminded me that she had these few left.

Finally, as she lay before me once again in a hospital bed, she choked out that she loved me and that she and Jesus would see me soon. “Just be patient,” she told me. With that, the light left her pretty blue eyes, and I heaved sobs upon her cold, frail body.

Attempting to cheer me up was useless. Neither my husband nor either of my sons can bring me out of my present state. How could they expect to? She shouldn’t be welcomed into the earth yet. I wish I could take her place. That should be me lying in the casket. But it’s too late; that’s my little girl, taken by the quickly consuming lung cancer. I stand here, heavy at heart, feeling as though nothing can ever be right again.