My daughter Avery was ten years old when she asked me for something I almost couldn’t afford.
She didn’t ask for a new toy.
She didn’t ask for an expensive birthday party.
She didn’t even ask for something that would last.
She simply wanted to spend one night in a real castle.
At the time, Avery had been fighting cancer for nearly two years.
Her latest treatment had stopped working the way we had hoped.
The doctors told us they needed to reconsider what would come next.
Those words changed the way I looked at our days.
For months, I had been saying things like, “Maybe someday.”
Maybe someday we’d take a special trip.
Maybe someday we’d stay somewhere beautiful.
Maybe someday we’d have time to do all the little things families normally take for granted.
After that appointment, I stopped saying it.
If Avery wanted pancakes for dinner, we made pancakes.
If she wanted to stay awake late watching old cartoons, I stayed beside her.
If she wanted to eat cookies in bed, I pretended not to notice the crumbs.
I stopped worrying so much about tomorrow.
Then one evening, Avery came into the room carrying her tablet.
“Mom,” she said, “look at this.”
She showed me a photograph of an old stone castle.
It had tall towers, narrow windows, ivy climbing along the walls, and a hotel sign near the entrance.
“Can we sleep in a real castle just once?”
I looked at the picture.
Then I looked at her.
She was smiling.
