She is thirteen years old.
In those thirteen years she has
experienced more,
struggled more, and
fought more
than most do in their entire lives.
“She’s lucky to be alive” they say.
“No, she’s alive because she is strong” I say.
Her life has not been measured by her luck;
her life has always been measured by her strength.
She has lost her hair,
undergone countless examinations,
thousands of pricks and pokes.
It has nothing to do with luck that her doctor does not need to see her this week,
that the nurse did not have to prick her one extra time,
that she has not lost those last strands of hair.
She was strong enough to smile through her pain,
to laugh when she could have cried, and
to become wiser than her years
as the childhood she should have had was stripped away.
Do not boil it down to her “luck”.
Having good luck has nothing to do with this battle-
having strength does.
-Kaley Wakey
The Luminary 