This latest hospital adventure has prompted me to think scary and unpleasant thoughts about Gracie’s future. She is barely 4 – she just had a birthday – and antibiotics are failing her. Her latest wicked infection is responding to the medicine, but not well; after three days of IV antibiotics, there is improvement, but not much.

It gets scarier and scarier. Which one of these infections will be The One? The one she can’t fight, the one the antibiotics won’t combat. Will she always make it home from the hospital, or will we someday have to return without our beautiful angel? I don’t want to think these thoughts but they are there. They creep up, whispering their terrible insults from the dark corners of my mind like gossiping housewives.

This infection is not The One, but it is getting closer. I can hear its heavy breaths in the shadows, can smell the putrid horror of its formless darkness. I hold my girl tightly, hoping to infuse her with my strength, hoping I can will her illness away, hoping her little light can continue to chase away the demon.