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I Didn’t Believe in Monsters Until My Daughter Got Cancer
Sometimes the monster is on the inside
“Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship, in the kingdom of the well and in the kingdom of the sick.” —Siddhartha Mukherjee, The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer
When my daughter Ana was seven, she was prone to nightmares. She was afraid to go to sleep, so I would sit beside her in bed and try to divert her mind from wandering into dark places.
“I’m going to see monsters with scary faces,” Ana would say, her blue eyes wide with fear. “I don’t want to go to sleep.”
“Let’s talk about your happy place, okay?” I’d say. “You can go there if you get scared or sad. It’s full of your favorite things. What do you think is there?”
“Ice cream!” she’d chirp, “and frogs and a big house filled with stuffed animals, and so much candy!”
“How much candy?”
“Mountains of candy,” Ana always said with a giggle. “There’s a big lake right next to the house where I can swim and lots of trees.”
“Can the bad dreams get you there?” I’d ask.
“No!”
I’d tuck her in, turn out the light and leave her to dream what I hoped would be good dreams. But the nightmares always…
