10/11/2026
I don’t think I’ll ever stop wondering why.
And I don’t just mean why my daughter. Although that’s a question that will haunt me for the rest of my life. I mean why any of this is happening. Why childhood cancer exists. Why children are dying from diseases they never had a chance to protect themselves from. Why families are watching their entire worlds fall apart while the rest of the world somehow keeps turning like nothing is happening.
I wonder why every single day.
I wonder why a brain tumor started growing inside my daughter’s brain. What happened inside her tiny body that caused cells to turn into something so destructive? Why was it her? Why was it somebody else’s baby down the hall? Why are there parents in this world who have to pick out a casket for a child whose favorite toys are still scattered across their bedroom floor?
How does something so cruel even exist?
I wonder why childhood cancer doesn’t seem to matter until it’s somebody’s own child. Why people can watch a video of a little kid ringing a bell, cry for a few seconds, and then go right back to their lives without ever thinking about the children who never got to ring one. Or the children who rang that bell and still died. Or the children who survived but will spend the rest of their lives dealing with what cancer and its treatments did to their bodies.
I wonder why medically complex children and their families are so often treated like an inconvenience. Why parents have to beg insurance companies for things their children medically need. Why getting treatment, therapy, equipment, medication, and basic accommodations can become another full-time battle. Why families who are already exhausted beyond anything words could describe have to prove, over and over again, that their children deserve help.
What is it about these children that makes the world so comfortable looking away?
Because I can promise you something. When you are the parent sitting in a hospital room watching your child suffer, you don’t get to look away. You don’t get to decide that childhood cancer is too upsetting to think about today. You don’t get to scroll past it because the pictures make you uncomfortable. You live inside the very thing everyone else has the privilege of avoiding.
And I hate that.
I hate cancer more than I could ever explain. I hate what it does to children. I hate what it does to families. I hate that it can take a perfectly ordinary childhood and turn it into a lifetime of medical appointments, medications, scans, surgeries, therapies, and fear. I hate that there are parents who know the exact sound of the machines keeping their child alive. I hate that children learn the names of chemotherapy drugs before they learn how to tie their shoes. I hate that some families leave the pediatric oncology floor carrying their child’s belongings instead of their child.
And I hate that the world has somehow learned to live with that.
People talk about childhood cancer like it’s just another unfortunate part of life. Like it’s something we’re supposed to accept because bad things happen. But I cannot accept that. I cannot wrap my head around the fact that we live in a world capable of extraordinary scientific discoveries, yet there are still childhood brain tumors with devastating outcomes and children who have no effective treatment left to try.
I know there isn’t one hidden cure for every cancer. I know these diseases are complicated, and I know there are researchers and medical professionals dedicating their lives to finding better answers. But knowing that doesn’t make the questions disappear. It makes me wonder what could be possible if childhood cancers received the urgency, resources, and attention these children deserve.
How many more children have to die before we decide that this is unacceptable?
How many more parents have to bury their babies? How many more families have to sell shirts, hold fundraisers, beg for donations, and tell the most painful parts of their lives publicly just to help move research forward?
Why is so much responsibility falling on the very people who are already losing everything?
And then I look at Brynlee.
I look at my beautiful little girl, and sometimes I just cannot believe this is her life. I cannot believe that a brain tumor changed the course of her entire childhood. That my daughter, who should have spent these years worrying about friends, toys, school, and what she wanted to be for Halloween, has instead had to learn how to live with the consequences of brain cancer.
I wonder what she would be like if none of this had happened. If her little body had never been exposed to chemotherapy and radiation. If she had never needed brain surgery. If she could run and play without the pain and difficulties she faces now. If I could still do her hair every morning. If I could watch her grow without knowing that some of the effects of treatment may follow her for the rest of her life.
And one of the hardest things I’ve had to come to terms with is knowing that the hospital will always be part of our lives.
Even with no evidence of disease, cancer doesn’t just pack up its belongings and leave our family alone. There will be scans. There will be specialists. There will be follow up appointments, therapies, and things that have to be watched as she grows. There will be birthdays and milestones that fill me with happiness while a little voice in the back of my mind wonders what the future holds.
I wonder if I’ll ever be able to sit in a doctor’s office with my daughter and not feel my stomach drop. If I’ll ever hear an unfamiliar symptom and not immediately think of the worst possibility. If there will ever be a time when I can look at the calendar without seeing another medical appointment waiting for us.
And none of those questions take away from how thankful I am that she’s here. I would choose this life with Brynlee a million times over having a life without her. But I wish she never had to fight for it. I wish none of these children did.
Some days I am proud. Some days I am grateful. Some days I am hopeful.
And some days, like today, I am just angry and heartbroken.
I’m tired of living in a world where children can suffer so terribly and the people raising awareness are often the same parents sitting beside their hospital beds. I’m tired of families having to fight to be heard. I’m tired of hearing that children are our future while watching families struggle to get them the care, support, and research they deserve right now.
Because these children matter before they become somebody’s heartbreaking story. They matter before their diagnosis becomes a fundraiser. They matter before their parents have to stand in front of a room full of people and explain why their lives are worth investing in.
They matter when they’re alive, when they’re sick, when they’re surviving, when they’re disabled, when they’re medically complex, and when the world has moved on from the month dedicated to their awareness.
I don’t understand why the world is the way it is. I don’t understand why something as innocent as a child can experience something as merciless as cancer. And I don’t understand how anybody can know that children are dying and not want to do absolutely everything possible to change it.
Maybe I’ll spend the rest of my life wondering why.
But I know I’ll spend it fighting, too.
Because somewhere tonight, another mother is going to hear the words that changed my life forever. Somewhere, a child is going to be diagnosed with a brain tumor. Somewhere, a family is going to be told there are no more options. And somewhere, a parent is going to kiss their child goodnight for the very last time.
While the rest of the world carries on.
And I will never, ever understand how that isn’t enough to make the whole world stop and demand better. 🩷