I took my daughter, terminally ill with stage 4 cancer, to get to know the ocean and fulfill her last wish, but then the hotel manager knocked on our door and said, “There’s something about this journey that you don’t know.”

When we returned home, he locked himself in the bedroom.

The next morning, I saw his suitcase next to the  door principal.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

He couldn’t even look me in the eye.

I can’t stand all this.

What can you not bear? That your daughter is sick?

“I’m not ready to spend every day in hospitals, Sarah. I can’t see her…

He didn’t finish the sentence.

So you’re going to abandon us?

Mike took his suitcase quietly and left.

Emily was standing at the top of the stairs. He was only three years old, but he stared at the door for a long time and kept asking:

When will Dad come home?

I never told him the truth. I explained that her father lived far away and that she was not yet prepared to visit her.