“The Day We Returned to the Floor Where Hope Began to Fade”.5744
Today was the first day we stepped back onto the 8 QB floor at Children’s Hospital since Will rang the bell after his last dose of chemotherapy, and I did not realize how heavy that single step would feel until my feet actually touched the floor again.
It felt like walking into a memory that still had teeth, a place that remembered us even when we wished, for just a moment, that we could forget.
We stopped by after finishing our clinic day, telling ourselves it was just another visit, just another hallway, just another floor, but nothing about it felt ordinary the second the doors opened.
Back then, the last time we stood there, everything was drenched in hope, and every smile felt earned, and every exhausted breath felt like it was leading us toward something better.
We were seeing positive signs.
We were watching numbers improve.
We were telling ourselves that the poison being pumped into his small, exhausted body was doing exactly what it was supposed to do, that it was winning the war we never asked to fight.
Walking back into that space today felt completely different, as if the walls themselves knew that hope had thinned, stretched, and been asked to carry far more weight than before.
Will, for the most part, had been managing.
His breathing had been under control.
The chest pain that once stole his breath had eased just enough to let him exist instead of simply endure.
The last couple of days had been almost normal, the kind of normal you cling to when your definition of “good” has been rewritten by illness.
Then, on the drive to the hospital this morning, in the quiet space between traffic lights and familiar roads, he casually said, “Mom, I must have slept wrong on my shoulder last night. It’s hurting.”
He lifted his hand and pointed, and the second I saw where his fingers landed, my stomach dropped in a way that words cannot fully explain.
I knew immediately.
The PET scan.
The clavicle tumor.
The spot I had memorized without ever wanting to.
My heart sank so fast it felt like my body forgot how to breathe for a second.
We went through the motions that have become second nature now.
Bloodwork.
Vitals.
Waiting rooms filled with muted televisions and people pretending not to listen to each other’s fears.
Then we sat with his oncologist, trying to read faces the way parents of sick children learn to do, searching for answers before they are spoken out loud.
Will’s alkaline phosphatase was up three hundred points from last week.
Eight hundred.
The highest it has ever been.
If you are familiar with osteosarcoma, you know this number matters more than most, and you know how loudly it can speak without ever making a sound.
It was five hundred at his stage four diagnosis.
It had dropped to one hundred seventy at his last chemotherapy treatment in September, a number we celebrated quietly, carefully, afraid to jinx the relief it gave us.
It is a known tumor marker.
And now it sits in my mind like a pit that refuses to close, whispering over and over again that the cancer may be growing faster than we can keep up with.
As I asked the oncologist questions, trying to sound composed, trying to sound like a mother who still had control over something, Will looked at me and said, “Does that mean the Cabo drug is working, Mama?”
That moment almost broke me in half.
We have never hidden the truth from him.
Not once.
From the day of diagnosis, we made a promise to be honest, because we believe that even children deserve the dignity of knowing what their bodies are facing.
But watching a fourteen-year-old process bad news again, and again, and again is a kind of pain that does not have a name.
How does a child not get beaten down by that weight.
How does he keep believing when his body keeps betraying him.
How does he hold onto faith when the answers never come wrapped in certainty or comfort.
And when he does fall short, when the fear catches up to him, how does he find the strength to stand back up and keep going.
I am so tired.
I am the kind of tired that sleep does not touch.
The kind of tired that settles into your bones and stays there.
I am too tired to even cry, and that somehow scares me more than the tears ever did.
The unknown looms over everything.
The waiting stretches each day longer than the last.
The next scans on January eighth feel close enough to haunt my thoughts but far enough away to feel cruel.
The bloodwork numbers replay in my head on a loop, making it feel like this disease is literally eating him alive while I stand by, helpless, clinging to a mustard seed of hope for a miracle.
For mountains to move.
For something impossible to bend, just once, in our favor.
I am mentally drained in ways I did not know were possible.
I am spiritually worn, scraped thin by prayers that feel heavy on my tongue.
And tonight, after everything, all I can say is this.
God, we need a miracle.
Not a small one.
Not a subtle one.
We need something undeniable.
Whatever Your plan may be, please give me the strength You gave Will just yesterday, the strength to pick myself back up when my legs feel like they cannot carry me another step.
God, I know You will not forsake me, but I need something, anything, to feel Your presence near enough to touch so I can continue on.
Please be with my family.
Please hold Will when I cannot protect him from what his body is facing.
Please remind us that we are not walking this road alone, even when it feels impossibly lonely.
In Jesus’ name,
Amen.
Saying Goodbye to Christina, Three Days Before Christmas.5819
We’re saying goodbye to Christina this morning.
Three days before Christmas.
Three days before her three-year-old son will wake up with that uncontrollable, breathless excitement only toddlers know, tearing into wrapping paper, shouting about toys, believing without question that magic is real.
Christina won’t be there to see Constantine jump for joy.
And that truth still feels impossible to hold.
I keep trying to understand it, and I can’t.
I feel too many emotions all at once—sadness so deep it feels physical, anger that flares without warning, confusion that circles back on itself no matter how many times I replay the facts. Six days ago, Christina returned to her Hoover home after an early morning jog, her body warm from movement, her lungs full of cold air, her mind likely already moving through the quiet checklist of the day ahead.
Minutes later, her life was gone.
She was the victim of a murder-suicide.
Those words sit heavy and wrong. They don’t fit the woman I knew. They don’t fit the life she lived. They don’t explain how something so senseless could erase someone so full of light.
I keep thinking about how unfair it all is.
How cruel.
How unnecessary.
Christina Chambers packed more life into thirty-eight years than most people manage in a lifetime.
She was the kind of person who didn’t just exist—she lived, intentionally and wholeheartedly. She loved running, not just as exercise, but as a celebration of what her body could do. She loved competition, the discipline, the challenge, the quiet pride that comes from pushing past limits. Running wasn’t just a hobby; it was part of who she was—early mornings, steady breaths, miles that cleared her mind and strengthened her spirit.
She loved her parents deeply, with a gratitude that never felt obligatory. She loved her four siblings in that layered way only siblings can—equal parts loyalty, laughter, shared history, and unconditional support. Family wasn’t something she talked about; it was something she showed up for, again and again.
And above all, she loved her son.
Constantine was her heart walking around outside her body. Every choice she made, every plan she formed, every prayer she whispered carried his name inside it. She spoke of him with joy and humility, as if motherhood wasn’t something she owned but something she had been entrusted with.
She loved baking pecan pies and Christmas sugar cookies with her mother, flour on the counters, laughter in the kitchen, traditions passed down through hands that had done this many times before. She loved the quiet joy of simple moments—the kind that don’t make headlines but build a life.
She loved life.
And she loved her Lord.
Christina Chambers lived a godly life in a way that never demanded attention. She never asked people to pray for her. Instead, she asked who she could pray for. In a world where so many seek affirmation, she sought service. Where others looked inward, she looked outward. Her faith wasn’t loud, but it was steady, sincere, and deeply lived.
I keep thinking about that.
About how rare it is.
About how easy it is to say we want to live like that—and how hard it is to actually do it.
Through the years, I’ve wondered if we should do more to Be Like Christina.
Not in grand gestures or public declarations, but in the quiet, daily choices that define who we are when no one is watching.
Don’t judge, but rather love.
Not the easy kind of love—the kind that feels natural—but the kind that takes patience, humility, and restraint. The kind that listens before speaking. The kind that leaves room for grace.
Be not spiteful, but kind.
Even when kindness costs something. Even when bitterness would feel justified. Christina had a way of choosing kindness without making it look performative. She didn’t weaponize goodness. She simply lived it.
Find a way to make others find the light.
She did that effortlessly. Not by preaching, but by example. By being someone whose presence felt safe, whose words felt thoughtful, whose actions reflected genuine care. People felt seen around her. Valued. Encouraged.
Yesterday, I visited Christina’s family during the visitation.
There is no adequate word for what I saw.
They are broken.
Not just grieving, but shattered by the kind of loss that doesn’t follow logic or fairness. The kind that leaves you asking questions no one can answer. A daughter. A sister. A mother. Taken in a way that defies understanding.
And yet—even in their brokenness—there was something else present.
Love.
Stories shared softly. Tears mixed with memories. A collective effort to hold one another upright when standing felt impossible. Grief was everywhere, but so was the unmistakable imprint of the woman they loved.
Christina’s life had shaped them.
And now, her absence does too.
I believe—truly believe—that if we all strive to Be Like Christina, we will comfort this family in ways words alone never can. We will honor her not just by remembering her, but by living differently because of her.
If we choose compassion over criticism.
If we choose kindness over cruelty.
If we choose to pray for others before asking for ourselves.
Then something good can still grow from this tragedy.
I think of Constantine.
Three years old.
Too young to understand why his mother won’t be there on Christmas morning. Too young to grasp the permanence of loss. Too young to know how deeply he was loved, how fiercely she dreamed for his future.
But one day, he will know.
He will hear stories.
He will see photos.
He will learn about a mother who ran hard, loved deeply, baked joy into holidays, and lived her faith with quiet strength. He will learn that her life mattered—that it still matters.
And maybe, in time, he will carry her light forward in ways none of us can yet imagine.
As we say goodbye to Christina today, I pray that the young woman with the word “Christ” in her name is resting at the side of Jesus. I pray that she knows how profoundly she was loved here, and how enduring her impact will be.
And as we move into the New Year—tender, shaken, uncertain—I pray that we remember her not only with sorrow, but with intention.
May we speak more gently.
May we judge less and love more.
May we look for ways to serve instead of be served.
May we ask, as Christina always did, Who can I pray for?
And may we all strive, every day, in small and meaningful ways, to Be Like Christina.