But they were still children who needed their parents. They needed them to see them beyond the two mouths they had to feed. They wanted to be taken seriously, and every day they tried hard to make them realize that they also bought and felt and were able to understand life so that they could take the time to explain and guide them. That just never seemed to happen. Everything got worse when Timmy got sick.
Every day he complained that his stomach hurt, but since it coincided with the beginning of school for the boy, his parents were convinced that he was simply trying to get out of going to school, and that’s why they were even furious when the boy told them that his stomach didn’t stop hurting and that when he ate he sometimes felt like vomiting. Six months had passed and Timmy was still sick and not getting the attention he needed. It got worse when he started vomiting at night. Susie told her parents that her little brother was throwing up his food, but they thought he’d just got indigestion and would be fine the next day. And since there was simply no way they’d believe that Timmy was sick and wounded in their dignity, the two siblings decided that they would not bother them anymore.
Susie then assumed that she was the only one who could take care of him because only she cared about him and didn’t leave to be alone at any time. Gradually accompanying him to vomit and holding him while he vomited became a habit that happened more and more often until it was a daily routine. The boy was getting thinner and was pale and weak all the time, and at his school they noticed it. But when they asked Timmy’s parents if the boy was suffering from any illness, they flatly denied it and excuse themselves by simply saying he was going through a stage of poor appetite, which, according to them, was very normal at his age because they’d gone through it too that soon he would start eating normally and his appearance would improve, but that it wasn’t an illness. In the meantime, Timmy was finding it harder and harder to keep his food down, and also his concentration and strength were disappearing little by little.
In class. He wasn’t able to pay attention, and he didn’t go out to play full of energy like all the other children. He preferred to sit in the sun, and many times he fell asleep, and even though so many people saw them, only Susie was able to understand that he was sick, and she could only hope that soon someone would pay attention to him. One night the mother went into the bathroom and found a scene she never thought she’d see. There was Susie helping her little brother, pulled himself up while he was vomiting, a bloody vomit that seemed to be tearing the little boy from the inside, and when the boy finished and looked at her, she realized she’d been blind for a long time and started screaming in complete shock.
Her son was sick. She didn’t know from what, but he’d been sick for a while now, and it was obvious the children had told them and they hadn’t paid attention. So they decided to fend for themselves by making as little noise as possible, trying to hide it as if they were doing something wrong. Susie and Timmy were so young that they didn’t know how serious it could be for the poor child to vomit like that and endure his terracotta stomach pains without any treatment. Nor did they know that none of it was really their fault, but the fault of irresponsible parents who had failed to pay attention.
All Susie wanted was to help her brother feel better, and for that reason the boy adored her because she was his biggest support and the only one who was looking out for him all the time. On the other hand, his parents didn’t know what care and love were. The boy told them hundreds of times that his stomach hurt, and they never paid attention to him, assuming that it was some childish strategy to avoid eating his food and nothing was really wrong with him. At no time did it occur to them to think that maybe their son was sick and that complaining so many times about a pain was not normal. And the fact is that there are parents to whom the title is too big for them, parents who neglect their children, believing that their job is limited to giving them a roof and food when it’s much more than that.
And if a parent is not willing to be present in every step their child takes, if they’re not willing to guide them, to teach them to face life and to be a good person, something would have to be done to put them in their place. And that was precisely what Jimmy’s parents needed. They needed the wake up call that the doctors gave them that difficult night because Timmy was so weak that his little body seemed to be unable to resist any longer. And now he was in the emergency room. And although they were slow to realize what was happening to him and needed to do several tests, that took many days.
When the diagnosis finally came, Everyone in the unit, doctors and nurses were devastated. The child had cancer in a terminal state, a cancer that he could have overcome a long time ago if Timmy’s parents had paid attention to what they were being told. Timmy’s mother still hadn’t come out of shock, and the father was feeling like the most miserable man in the world. How is it possible that his son was on the edge of death when from the beginning, he had begged for their attention? How have they been able to ignore their own son’s pain without paying attention to anything else?
Not even to Susie, who every day asked them to take her brother to a doctor? Both of them couldn’t believe their own ambulance, Nor that dastardly way they behaved. And the speeches they were given at the hospital made them feel even worse. But it was, welldeserved, the whole time Timmy was in the hospital, they were constantly reproached by all the medical authorities. Some nurses weren’t even able to speak to them again.
All the attention was focused on Timmy and saving him at any cost. But after a couple of weeks, they realized they’d arrived too late. There was no way to save the little boy. And in the midst of tears and despair, the only consolation his sister had was that Timmy’s last words were for her to thank her and ask her to be happy because he’d be watching over her from heaven to understand that now he was going to rest, and that was why he was at peace. The tranquility was reflected during his last breath, and the image of the child was practically of an angel.
Timmy’s parents could never get over knowing that their son had died because of them and trying to repay at all costs Everything they’d been wrong with inordinate attention for Susie. But Susie had already learned to stand up for herself. And although she grew up and learned to forgive her parents, the relationship between them could never fully heal. The memory of Timmy was still painful, but she was also inspired by it every day. And as she grew up, she found a way to accomplish the goal that she had set for herself.
Since she had said goodbye to her little brother to find a hospital to treat children with cancer. And she didn’t stop for a second until she did it. Susie became the standard bearer of the fight against childhood cancer in her country. And until the last of her days, she helped without looking at whom and with all of her love, because her brother, even so many years later, never stopped inspiring her.
