Life was perfect once.
Richard and I had a beautiful life—two amazing kids, a happy home, and a bond people envied.
Our daughter Ellie, 12, was curious and bright; our son Max, 8, adored her. We lived for beach trips, movie nights, and soccer games. Richard joked it was like living in a sitcom.
Then everything changed.
Ellie started feeling tired, her legs hurt, and mysterious bruises appeared. We thought it was just growing pains.
But tests revealed the truth: acute lymphoblastic leukemia.
Our world shattered.
We fought—hospital stays, chemo, endless hope. Ellie was brave, fierce. “I look like a warrior,” she’d say, bald and proud.
For eight months, we lived in cycles of hope and heartbreak. Then, one quiet March morning, cancer took her.
Grief broke us. Richard buried himself in work. Max grew quiet. I barely held it together.
Then something strange happened.
Each evening, Max waved at the backyard. When I asked why, he said, “Ellie. She waves back.”
I dismissed it—until I checked the security footage.
There was Max waving. And in the shadows by the treehouse—a flicker. A figure. Same height, same stance, same purple sweater Ellie loved. The figure waved back.
The next night, I asked Max to show me.
“This was our magic place,” he said beneath the treehouse. “She promised she’d always be here. That dying just means different.”
Then a rustle. A girl emerged—Ellie’s age, in her sweater.
“Ava?” I asked.
Ellie’s best friend.
“She asked me to come sometimes. Said Max would need someone. She gave me the sweater, told me it’d help him remember.”
I sat down and cried.
Max held me. “It’s okay, Mom. She’s not really gone.”
And somehow, I believed him.
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