Thirty-Eight:
Thirty-eight years on this earth and some days I still feel like I’m standing in the rubble of battles I never asked to fight. Healing from trauma isn’t linear. It isn’t aesthetic. It isn’t a cute quote on a pastel background. It’s messy and inconvenient and sometimes it creeps up on you years later and whispers, “You’re not done yet.” And when it comes to my son’s cancer — and all that happened around us when he was diagnosed — I don’t think a mother ever just “gets over” watching her child fight for their life while simultaneously navigating systemic failures, corruption, and ableism that caused real, tangible harm. That kind of trauma doesn’t sit neatly in the past. It rewires you. It embeds itself in your nervous system. It lives in your bones. Some days I’m strong and composed and overflowing with gratitude. Other days it hits me sideways and I realise I’m still carrying pieces of it all — not just the illness, but the environment we were forced to survive within. Then the guilt ...
