One day, Anni, you will be through with all this. It will be a distant memory, like a childhood song whose words and melody come to you only in fragments.
You will roll your blue eyes when your mother asks where you're driving, who will be there, call if you go anywhere else.
"You're so over-proTECtive," you'll call over your shoulder as you head through the door, a flutter of blonde curls.
Because your mother has kept such good notes, you may know the details of your story better than many people who have traveled roads similar to yours. You're lucky for that, and I hope you thank her one day.
Your story is her story, too. And your father's and your sister's. The scars you own are their scars, too, and they represent all the worst fears and best cases and burning questions and and lost sleep and lost sleep and lost sleep.
One day, you will help your own daughter or son climb the ladder on the small slide at the park, and you will realize that your child is the same age you were when you had your second transplant. You'll take her corduroy jacket off because she's gotten too hot with all her playing. You'll wipe her face and her hair, sweaty and damp around the top of her forehead.
You'll wonder how your mother got through it.
You'll wonder how you got through it.
These years will be fuzzy memories one day, but your scars will stay with you. Maybe you'll hate them for a while, and wish they could just disappear. Maybe you'll forget you have them, and remember only when a new doctor asks.
"What? These? Oh yeah..."
And maybe you'll look at them one day, and whisper "Thank you," because you have absolute, undeniable proof that you are strong, that you can fight, that you can do anything.
I hope the day comes soon, Anni, that all of this is just a memory.
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