Tomorrow Is Circled on the Calendar — But Tonight, We’re Holding Our Breath
Tomorrow is circled on the calendar, but in our house it doesn’t feel like an ordinary day on the way. It feels heavier — like the air itself is holding its breath.
Tonight, the hospital room is quiet except for the soft rustle of sheets and the steady rhythm of machines that never sleep. Their sounds have become familiar, almost comforting in their constancy. Proof that someone is watching. Proof that time is still moving, even when it feels frozen.
She tries to smile the way kids do when they don’t want you to worry.
Her glasses sit slightly crooked. Her hair is messy from turning on the pillow. Her hospital gown is covered in cheerful colors — bright patterns that look like they were designed to argue with fear itself. Her small hand finds mine, and in that moment, the world becomes very small and very clear.
Just a hand holding another hand.
Earlier tonight, she asked for a sheet of paper and a marker.
Not a toy.
Not a cartoon.
Just paper.
She wrote one sentence — simple, brave, and somehow too big for someone so small. Then she looked up at me and said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world:
“Can I have a heart?”
A heart.
Not answers.
Not promises.
Not explanations.
Just a sign that someone is there — somewhere — thinking of her when the hallway lights dim and the doctors’ footsteps fade away.
In the morning, they’ll roll her bed through doors we can’t follow. We’ll be left behind with waiting-room coffee, stiff chairs, and the kind of silence that makes you count every minute twice. We’ll smile at strangers who understand without asking questions. We’ll wait.
And this is what I’ve learned in moments like this:
Love doesn’t always arrive as a grand gesture.
Sometimes it arrives as something small.
Quiet.
Steady.
Real.
A heart can’t do the surgery.
It can’t change the schedule or the outcome.
But it can do something else.
It can remind a child — right now, tonight — that she is not alone.
And sometimes, that is everything. ❤️
