You never think your mom will be the one who gets cancer.

You can never understand another’s fear

You can never understand another’s pain

You don’t understand how intense they hope

That everything will be okay. It’s always someone else’s fight.

You hear ‘keep her in your prayers, pray for her, please pray’

I never prayed as much as I should’ve, even though my father reminded me every night: pray.

It was always a far away notion… cancer.

It was a point in my life when the only time I’d fight

Was with my little sister. I didn’t know fear.

Everything was okay. My only distant hope

Was that I wouldn’t feel pain.

Of course, I’ve felt physical pain.

But never the kind that made you pray,

The kind that made you hope

With all your heart that it wasn’t cancer.

I had never felt that fear,

A fear I didn’t know how to fight.

It wasn’t my mom’s turn to fight.

Me, my siblings, my dad wouldn’t feel that pain.

I felt relief. Again, I didn’t fear.

But I still felt sorrow. I needed to pray.

Maybe it wasn’t my mom, but it was her mom who had cancer.

Not everything was okay, and all we could do was hope.

We held onto our hope,

It was all we had during her fight.

It wasn’t our fight against cancer.

Only hers. We all watched her pain

As she tried to hide it. Together we would pray.

In a time of uncertainty, I understood fear.

It was temporary fear.

And eventually, we needn’t desperately hope

Anymore. Though we used to constantly pray,

We now didn’t need to so urgently. She won her fight.

The relief we felt was tremendous. Her pain

Was gone. My mother’s mother--my grandmother--beat cancer.

I felt such intense fear when I thought my mother had cancer.

I had to hope she didn’t. She didn’t, but then my terrifying thoughts became her pain.

It’s over now, but it changed me. I had to watch my mom pray that her mom would win this fight.