Heart & Hope
As we get older, time stops asking for permission.
It doesn’t knock. It doesn’t wait.
It doesn’t even slow the hell down.
It just moves. And suddenly the years don’t feel like years anymore — they feel like a blink.
A blur.
A violent, spinning tornado where you’re just trying to keep your footing while everything around you gets ripped up and thrown into the sky.
You make yourself bullshit promises in the middle of the chaos.
You tell yourself you’ll finally take that trip you’ve been romanticizing for years — the one with the linen dresses and ocean air and a version of you that feels lighter.
You tell yourself Monday will be different.
That this is the MONDAY you become disciplined.
The MONDAY you eat clean.
The MONDAY you become her.
You promise yourself:
- You’ll fix your eating habits
-You’ll start strength training
-You’ll hit ten thousand steps like your life depends on it
-You’ll keep up with your skincare routine
-You’ll call your friends back instead of saying “I’ll text them later.”
You build this quiet list of intentions.
Promises you whisper to yourself like they’re sacred.
And somehow… they never quite make it to the top of the priority list.
Not really.
Not until life looks you dead in the face and says:
Now. You don’t get to wait anymore.
I read the report.
Slowly. Carefully.
Like maybe if I took my time, the words would rearrange themselves into something less cruel.
They didn’t.
Scribbled along the bottom of the report read…
Invasive squamous cell carcinoma.
I read it again. And again.
As if repetition might soften the blow.
My heart started racing. The race that makes your body feel like it’s turning against you.
My breath shortened.
Sharp. Uneven. And suddenly I was panicking in a way I couldn’t control.
This can’t be happening. He’s been through enough.
But the truth?
Somewhere deep down… I already knew.
That quiet, gut-wrenching knowing that lives in your bones before your brain catches up.
I knew.
And somehow, that didn’t make it easier. Because knowing doesn’t prepare you.
It just means the fall is longer.
You don’t have to keep it together every second of the day. You’re allowed to need support.
My dad. My number one supporter.
My safe place.
The man who has loved me through every version of myself — even the ones I’m not proud of.
The impulsive decisions. The chaos. The moments where I didn’t recognize who I was becoming.
He never flinched.
And now I’m being told he has stage IV lung CANCER.
No chemotherapy. No immunotherapy. With an expiration tag I will NOT accept.
I thought the worst part would be hearing the diagnosis.
Turns out… that was just the beginning.
The day I fought—really fought—for my dad to have a PET scan was the day I realized how broken this system actually is.
Not flawed. Not complicated.
Irrevocably fucking broken.
I could see him slipping. His mental health declining. His cognition fading.
He wasn’t himself anymore.
And when you know someone that deeply—you don’t need a chart to tell you something else is wrong.
You feel it.
So I brought him to the emergency room.
Same campus as oncology.
Same place where the scan could have been done.
I thought urgency would matter. I thought proximity meant access.
I thought being this sick meant someone would move.
The first ER doctor told me he was extremely ill. The kind of tone that makes your stomach drop before your brain can catch up.
We knew he was being admitted. We knew he needed care.
And still?
No PET scan.
Still resistance.
Still delay.
Still that invisible wall you slam into when you’re begging for answers.
I wasn’t asking for miracles. I was asking for clarity.
For staging. For truth.
For a fighting chance to understand what we were up against.
Then the admitting physician walked in.
Cold. Detached. That quiet arrogance that fills a room before he even says a word. His sense of superiority — nauseating.
He spoke like this was routine. Like this was nothing. Like we were nothing.
And then he said it.
Clear. Direct. Unapologetic.
“Money…”
The words spewed from his lips with such casualness it was like a slap in the fucking face.
I’m not naive to this fact. I work for one of the largest health insurance providers in the United States. So when I tell you I have front row seats to how corrupt the system is — I know.
And I certainly didn’t need an uptight, douchebag of a physician to throw it in my face.
But for the first time in my life, I stayed quiet.
He is right after all.
I asked a simple question on how to get my father the PET scan he needed and with one word, I knew where my father’s fate stood.
Growing up, my dad used to give me these tiny trinket hearts.
Nothing extravagant.
Nothing flashy. Just small, simple reminders.
“You’re my Heart,” he would say.
And I carried that with me—without even realizing how deeply it rooted itself inside of who I am.
People say I’m just like him.
My mother has said it more times than I can count: “You are your father’s daughter.”
And I used to roll my eyes at it. Laugh it off.
Push back.
But now? I cling to it.
My heart…
Feels like its breaking in places I didn’t even know existed.
How do you prepare yourself for a world where the person who helped build you… is no longer in it??
When I feel my mind start to wander — when it even edges toward what this really means — I shut it down immediately.
I cut off the sting that instantly burns behind my eyes.
I swallow the lump that forms in my throat so forcefully I dare it to come back. I don’t allow myself to go there. I can’t.
No yet. I fear I won’t know how to pull myself out of the grief that I know is waiting.
This fragile semi-controlled space between the knowing and breaking.
Until next time and with so much Heart & Hope…
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When my mind wouldn’t quiet down, this became my ritual.
Read more on Sandalwood & Serenity | THQ’s cozy home edit
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