"Will you be my dad until I die?"

A little girl asked me if I could be her dad until she died, but I said no for one reason.

It was the words of a child. Seven years old, sitting in a hospital bed hooked up to wires, she looked at me — a total stranger, a scary-looking biker — and asked if I'd pretend to be her dad for the rest of her life.

My name is Mike. I’m 58. I’m a biker, tattoos covering my arms, a beard down to my chest, and I’m a member of the Defenders Motorcycle Club.

Every Thursday, I volunteer at Texas Children’s Hospital reading to sick kids. It’s an outreach our club started fifteen years ago when one of our brother’s granddaughters was going through months of pediatric cancer treatment.

Most of the kids are scared of me at first. I get it. I’m huge, loud, and look like I rode straight out of a biker movie, not a children’s hospital. But as soon as I start reading, they forget how I look. They only hear the story.

I thought the same would happen with Amara.

I walked into Room 432 on a Thursday afternoon in March. The nurse had warned me: a new patient. Seven years old. Stage four neuroblastoma. Not a single relative had visited her in the three weeks she’d been admitted.

"Not a single relative?" I asked.

The nurse's face darkened. "Her mother abandoned her here. Brought her in for treatment and never came back. We've been trying to reach her for weeks. Social services is involved, but Amara has no other family. She'll be transferred to a foster family as soon as she's stable enough to be discharged."

"And if she isn't stable?"

The nurse turned away. "Then... she dies here. Alone."

I stood outside the room for a full minute before I could step in. I had read to kids who were dying before. It was never easy. But a kid who was dying completely alone? That was a new kind of hell.

I knocked lightly and opened the door. "Hi there, I'm Mike. I came to read you a story, if you'd like."

The little girl on the bed turned her head to look at me. She had the biggest brown eyes I’d ever seen. Her hair was all gone from the chemo. Her skin was a dull grey color, the signs of a body that was fighting. But she smiled when she saw me.

"You're very big," she said in a weak, reedy voice.

"I am, people tell me that." I held up the book I brought. "I have a story about a giraffe who learns to dance. Would you like to hear it?"

She nodded. So I sat down and started to read.

I was halfway through the book when she interrupted. "Mr. Mike?"

"Yes, darlin'?"

"Do you have kids?"

The question hit me in the gut. "I used to have a daughter. She passed away when she was sixteen. Car accident. Been twenty years."

Amara was silent for a moment. Then she asked: "Do you remember what it felt like to be a dad?"

My throat tightened. "I remember it every day, darlin'."

"My real dad left before I was born," she said simply. "And my mom brought me here and never came back. The nurses say she’s not coming back."

I didn’t know how to respond. What do you say to a seven-year-old child who has been abandoned in the middle of her death?

Amara continued: "The social worker says I’ll go to a foster family when I’m better. But I heard the doctors. They don’t think I’ll get better."

"Darlin'..."

"It’s okay," she said. Her voice was so calm. Too calm for a child. "I know I’m dying. Everyone thinks I don’t understand, but I do. I heard that the cancer cells are everywhere. They said maybe six months. Maybe less."

I put the book down. "Amara, I’m so sorry."

She looked at me with those big eyes. "Mr. Mike, can I ask you one thing?"

"Anything you want."

"Will you be my dad... until I die?"

Silence fell over the room. Even the monitors seemed to stop. I felt the weight of my fifty-eight years settle on my shoulders like lead.

I wanted to say yes. God, I wanted to say yes so bad my bones ached. But I was just a ragged old biker who came in once a week with funny books. I drank too much, and sometimes I still yelled my dead daughter’s name into an empty house. What did I know about fatherhood anymore, even for a short time?

I swallowed the rock caught in my throat. "Darlin'... I would be honored. But I have to be honest: I might not be a good dad anymore. I might mess it up."

Her whole face lit up like a sunrise. "That's okay. You can just practice on me."

And just like that, I had a daughter again.

The nurses cried when I told them. The social worker cried harder when I requested temporary guardianship, medical decision-making power, everything so I could take her home if she got better, or be by her bedside every day if she didn’t. My club turned out in force — twenty-five roaring Harleys in the hospital parking lot, scaring the security until they saw the stuffed animals tied to every bike.

We turned Room 432 into something that didn't look like a hospital room anymore. One guy brought pink bedsheets. Another brought a tiny leather jacket with "Daddy's Girl" embroidered on the back. Someone hung fairy lights. Someone else smuggled in a puppy (totally not allowed, but only for ten minutes — Amara laughed so hard she had to put her oxygen back on).

Thursday became every day. I read the giraffe book over and over until we had it memorized. Then Charlotte’s Web. Then Harry Potter. When her hands were too weak to hold the book, I held it for both of us. When the pain was too much, I lay down on her tiny bed and let her sleep on my chest while I hummed Johnny Cash songs, just like I used to with my first daughter.

The doctors kept shaking their heads. They couldn't understand it. The scans weren't getting better — but they weren't getting worse either. Six months turned into nine months. Nine months turned into twelve months.

On the morning of her eighth birthday, Amara woke up and told me, "Daddy, I had a dream I was running. My legs worked and everything."

I kissed her forehead. "Then we'll make that come true, darlin'."

Two weeks later, the oncologist called me in, eyes wide. "Her spinal tumors... they’re shrinking. I have never seen—" He stopped. "We're seeing significant regression. I have no explanation."

Me, I had one. Love. Simple, stubborn, loud, tattooed love.

Eighteen months after the day she asked me to be her dad "until she died," Amara left the hospital on her own two feet, holding my hand, wearing her tiny leather jacket, and a smile brighter than the sky.

My club threw her a homecoming party that shook the neighborhood. There were ponies. A bounce house. A cake as big as a Harley wheel. And as the sun went down, the bonfire crackling, Amara nestled into my lap, looked up at the stars and whispered: "Daddy?"

"Yes, darlin'?"

"I don't think I'm going to die anytime soon."

I squeezed her tight, hard enough to feel both our hearts beating together. "Good," I said, my voice thick like an old man's. "Because I've only just started being your dad."

She’s fifteen now. Still in remission. Still calls me Daddy every day. Still sleeps in the pink bedsheets from old Room 432.

And every Thursday, rain or shine, we go back to the Children’s Hospital — me on my Harley, her on the back, holding on tight like she’s done it all her life — and we read to the new kids who are scared and hurting.

Because there are things that are worth more than the years you have.

There are things that become forever.

Tiếp tục nghe? 🎧

Bạn có muốn nghe tiếp từ phân đoạn đã dừng không?