Ordinary Childhood Things
Several minutes later, we walked toward the entrance again.
Without planning it, the entire staff followed us outside.
They stood together beneath the hospital awning as Martha stepped into the afternoon sunlight.
Halfway down the sidewalk, she began hopping over every crack.
I laughed.
“What are you doing?”
She looked back with the largest smile I had seen in years.
“I missed sidewalks, Mom.”
Several nurses covered their mouths.
Angela leaned against Mr. Howard because she was crying too hard to stand straight.
Not because Martha had completed treatment.
Because she was finally worried about something only a ten-year-old would think about.
I took my daughter’s hand.
She squeezed mine.
Then she turned around and waved both arms at the people standing outside the hospital.
Every one of them waved back.
When we reached the parking lot, I looked through the glass doors one final time.
Martha’s fresh blue handprint was still drying among hundreds of others.
For two years, I believed I was carrying my daughter through the most difficult journey of our lives.
I was not.
I carried her home each night.
They carried her through every day.
As Martha skipped toward our car, carefully avoiding every crack in the pavement as though it were the most important mission in the world, I finally understood something.
The greatest miracle was not hearing that her treatment had ended.
