“I tried to give her a fair chance.„
Then, a few weeks before Easter, Liam came into the kitchen one afternoon holding something in both hands as if it might fall apart. It was a small, crooked, uneven bunny, one ear longer than the other.
“I made this for kids in the hospital,” Liam explained. “So they don’t feel lonely.”
My throat tightened.
I looked at that little thing in his hands, and for a second, I couldn’t speak.
“I made this for kids.”„
“Why a bunny?” I asked when I found my voice.
Liam gave me the smallest smile I’d seen in a long time.
“Mom used to call me her ‘bunny’.”
That did it.
I swallowed hard and said, “That is such a beautiful gesture, Liam. I’m sure those kids will love them!”
That was all he needed.
After that, Liam worked every day.
After school. Before dinner. Sometimes, even before bed.
“Why a bunny?”„
My grandson sat at the kitchen table with his mother’s old sweaters, unraveling them carefully and turning them into yarn again. Then he started knitting for hours, just like he used to with his mother.
Not perfectly, but steadily.
He made tiny bunnies with crooked ears and mismatched eyes.
One bunny turned into five. Five into 20. And before I knew it, there were boxes lined up along the wall!
Then he started knitting for hours.„
Each bunny had its own little tag with a message tied around its neck.
“You are not alone.”
“You are brave.”
“Keep fighting.”
I asked him once how many he planned to make.
“One hundred,” he said, as if it were nothing.
And somehow? he did it!
For the first time in two years, I saw something come back into him. He wasn’t the same boy he used to be.
But he now had pride.
Somehow? he did it!„
***
The afternoon everything fell apart started like any other.
Liam and I were in the living room, carefully packing the last of the bunnies into boxes. We’d planned to take them to the children’s cancer ward the next morning.
My grandson was excited.
He kept checking the boxes, straightening them, and counting under his breath.
Then Claire walked in.
She stopped when she saw the boxes.
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