The Night Before the Knife.

The night before my surgery, we were tucked away in a quiet hotel room, just ten minutes from the hospital — but hours from home. That distance felt so much bigger than miles. It felt like I had already been pulled far away from everything familiar, everything safe.

My boyfriend was there with me. He stayed close, gentle with his words, trying his best to make me feel okay when nothing about any of this felt okay. We didn’t say much. We didn’t need to. The weight of what was coming hung heavy in the room.

Eventually, I got up and knelt at the foot of the bed. I didn’t even think about it — my body just moved, like it knew what I needed before I did. And there, with my hands folded and my head bowed low, I prayed. I whispered my fears. I asked for strength. I begged for peace. Not just for me — for him, too. Because this wasn’t just my loss. It was his, too.

I cried softly. Not loud or dramatic — just quiet, steady tears that slipped down my face and hit the hotel carpet. And he sat behind me, still and quiet, just there. Letting me feel everything. Letting me fall apart without needing to fix it.

We were just a few miles from the hospital, but it felt like we were standing at the edge of something so much bigger — like everything was about to change. And it did. But that night, in that room, I let myself grieve what was coming. I let myself be scared. I let myself pray.

And somehow, in that stillness, in that moment between what was and what would be, I felt a flicker of peace. Just enough to get through the next day.