The Shared Space Blog

The hospital bag sat by our front door for nine months, slumped against the wall like another person waiting for a ride. It was a faded navy duffel from a summer camp I went to in 2009. One zipper stuck near the corner. Mom tied a strip of yellow ribbon to it so I could find the right pocket fast. Inside were peppermint candies, fuzzy socks, a phone charger with a cracked base, a plastic folder full of papers, and a green notebook where I wrote down things I was too scared to

When my brother was diagnosed with leukemia, I was only in the second grade. At that age, you don't have the words for things like oncology, prognosis, or chemotherapy. You just know that your world has shifted on its axis, and that every single day feels a little bit heavier than the one before it. At my school, the teachers gave out paper tickets to students for being good. If you saved them up, you got to visit the school "candy bar" at the end of the day to trade them in.