02/01/2026
“Cancer didn't just happen to my body.
It happened to my children too.
I see it in my 15-year-old son, who watches me closely and asks, "Are you okay?" every time | get sick or slow down, then quietly offers help with everyday things that were never his responsibility to carry.
I hear it in my 7-year-old's confusion when she asks why I still have so many doctor's appointments, because she thought my cancer was gone. She's waiting for the ending she was promised, and I don't know how to explain that some things don't wrap up neatly.
And I feel it in my 18-year-old twins, who avoid the subject altogether unless I bring it up, holding it in, keeping their distance from the words, each of them managing their fear in silence.
Cancer takes from children too.
It takes their sense of safety.
It takes their innocence.
It teaches them to watch instead of trust, to worry instead of assume.
As a parent, that weight is heavy. Knowing my illness has asked things of them they never should have had to give.
Knowing that even on the days I'm okay, they are still carrying the echo of what we've been through.
This is the part people don't talk about.
The quiet ways cancer lingers in a family.”
Unknown
