My mother was sick. She was so sick that she had been in the Massachusetts General Hospital for the last three months, confined to the bed that stole her autumn. Now, winter was approaching, the red leaves were falling off the trees, and you could see your breath in the air. 

Fall was my mother’s favorite season, but now her once red hair was thinning and falling out like leaves from the Boston trees. Cancer was stealing her life. It was stealing mine, too. 

Watching her suffer like this was killing us all. I visited her everyday, and brought fresh flowers, but the ones she loved were the ones my father gave her. She still pretended mine were her favorite, for my benefit. My father rarely left her side. He slept in the hospital, worked from the hospital, and ate from the hospital cafeteria. Her cancer was killing him too. 

I walked quickly up the steps, pausing at the top only to kick the leaves off my new shoes and I walked into the hospital lobby. I didn’t even stop to greet Martha, the kind elderly woman at the reception desk who always baked scones for my mother and I to have on Sunday’s. I raced up the stairs, not bothering to wait for the elevator, and rushed down the hall. I didn’t even knock before barging into my mother’s room. 

She was sitting up in her bed, watching a knitting program and glaring at the knitting needles in her lap. She always ignored the tubes stuck to her, and the beeping of the machines; she would pretend it wasn’t there. 

“MOM! I DID IT!” I exclaimed, watching her eyes widen.

“The Olympics?” She asked, her excitement radiated off her smile. 

“YES!” 

“OH MY GOD SARA! This is huge!” 

I hugged her tightly, then twirled around the room. “I can’t believe it, I really thought Elaine was going to get the spot, but..” I trailed off, too ecstatic to speak. 

“Have you started packing?” My mother asked. 

“Packing?” I repeated, bewildered. “No of course not, I’m not going,”

Her hand flew to her heart. “Why not? You have to! This is the Olympics, Sara!”

“I’m staying here with you! I want to be here to see you when you get out of this bed!” I protested. 

“Please,” she scoffed. “You don’t need to be here for that. When I watch you skate on that screen,” she pointed to her TV, “I will jump out of this bed so fast, I’ll be out of here before anyone can stop me. Watching you, it will truly be my cure.”

“I don’t know-”

“Well I do,” she insisted. “You have been working towards this moment fo your entire life, and I’ll be damned if I am the reason you don’t get to have it. You are going to London, and you are going to skate your heart out, and you are going to love it, because you are the best figure skater I have ever seen. And I will be rooting for you from here. Trust me Sara. Give me my life back. Skate.”

“Skate,” she repeated when I hesitated. 

A smile slowly spreads across my face. “I’m going to London!” I cheered hugging her again.

“Go! Get out of my room!” She teased. “And bring me back a souvenir!” She called after me as I raced out the door. 

The next few weeks were a blur of training, packing, and preparing for the biggest day of my life. Before I knew it, my flight was skidding to a stop on the London Airport tarmac. Winter in London was freezing, far colder than Massachusetts. I regretted not bringing my thicker coats as I walked up the steps of the Olympic Skating Rink. The only thing I could hear was my heart racing as I changed into my competition costume and laced up my skates. Now I would wait. 

“Alright, Mom, they’re about to call my name,” my blood was rushing so fast I felt like the world was racing and I was standing very, very still. I looked my mother in the eyes through the FaceTime call. 

“You can do this,” she whispered. “I love you, Sara.”

My eyes watered, but I blinked away the tears. “I love you too, Mom. Don’t forget to root for me.”

She nodded, and I heard her cough before she hung up the phone. 

“Sara Anne Johnson, USA,” the words echoed around the rink, but the world fell silent as I stepped onto the ice. Across the rink, I could see a news camera, and I stared straight at it, because I knew my mother was on the other side. 

I took a deep breath, and listened to the music as it slowly filled the huge space. Each motion was mindless, but held a thousand thoughts at the same time. I thought of this past year, all of the pain from my mother’s cancer, the tears and fake smiles, they all brought me here. Here I was, skating in the Olympics, my mother was going to get better, and my life was going to go back to the way it was. I won. I won it all. And when the music stopped, I knew that. 

I skated off the ice back to the bench where my belongings were and waited for the judges to tally up the scores. The anticipation was killing me, and all the other girls were on the edges of their seats. 

“And now, the judges have decided the final score!” The announcer called over the microphone. “The winner is…SARA JOHNSON!” 

My vision blurred as tears filled my eyes. I won. I won the Olympics. I bent down and cried into my hands. This was the moment where I had everything, this was the moment where all of the hardship of the last year was worth it, because it brought me here. 

I raced off the ice to call my mother, but my phone was already ringing. I snatched it off the bench and answered. My father was crying, crying with me. 

“Oh Sara,” He sobbed. “It’s Mom,” he choked on the words, “she’s gone,”

The world fell silent. The phone slipped out of my fingers, landing with a soft thud on the padded floor. The stadium was spinning, the walls were falling in. 

“But I won,” I whispered.