No one came to visit.
My children lived far away, tied down by jobs and responsibilities they could not leave on short notice. Friends checked in by phone when they could, but life kept moving for them while mine stood still.
Ezoic
Each day felt longer than the last. When night came, the quiet grew heavier, and the loneliness settled in.
That was when she appeared.
The Girl Who Came Each Night
Almost every evening, usually when the hallway grew quiet, a young girl would come into my room. She looked to be around thirteen or fourteen, with dark hair she kept tucking behind her ears. Her face was young, but her eyes held a seriousness that felt far older.
Ezoic
She never made noise when she arrived. She would pull a chair close to my bed and sit down as though she belonged there, hands folded neatly in her lap.
I could not speak, could not ask her name or why she came, yet she seemed to understand my silence.
Ezoic
Sometimes she leaned close and whispered softly, careful not to disturb anything around us.
“Be strong,” she said one night. “You’ll smile again.”
Those words settled deep inside me. I repeated them to myself when pain flared or when fear crept in during the early hours of the morning.
Ezoic
I began to wait for her presence. In a place where I felt unseen, she made me feel noticed.
She never touched the machines or asked questions. She simply stayed. And somehow, that was enough.
Ezoic
Doubt and Disbelief
When I finally regained my voice, one of the first things I asked a nurse about was the girl. The nurse listened kindly, then gently shook her head. No one matching that description had been recorded as a visitor. There were no notes, no sign that anyone had been coming to sit with me at night.
