I was born in the summer amongst the warmth, the air, the long days and the endless laughter pouring into open windows in my South Side of Chicago neighborhood. Summer has always been a magical time for me.
That last summer with her wasn’t anything like that.
There were no lazy days spent playing outside or curled up with Daddy reading the latest Harry Potter book. Instead, there were hospital rooms, heartache and the stifling stench of the cancer that filled the 13th floor of Northwestern Memorial Hospital. In the middle of July, about a week after my 18th birthday, my Mama told my sister and me that she had cancer. As I sobbed uncontrollably, she soothed me and held me like she always did. She calmed my fears and promised me that everything would be ok. Two years later, nine days before I returned to college for my junior year, my Mama died. Five years have passed since that dreaded summer, so many of those memories have become hazy in my mind.
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