Life used to be beautiful. My husband Richard and I had two amazing kids: Ellie, 12, and Max, 8. We were the kind of family people envied—until Ellie got sick. At first, we thought it was just growing pains. But then came the bruises, the fatigue, the tests… and finally, the diagnosis: acute lymphoblastic leukemia. We fought for eight months, but cancer won. Ellie passed away on a bright March morning, and our perfect world shattered. We all grieved differently. Richard buried himself in work, Max became quiet and withdrawn, and I struggled to get through each day.
Then, I noticed something strange. Every evening, Max would stand at the back door and wave at the empty yard. When I finally asked him who he was waving to, he said, “Ellie. She waves back.” I was shaken. That night, I checked our security footage—and what I saw made my heart stop. There was Max, waving as always… and by the treehouse, a figure appeared. Same build as Ellie. Same purple sweater with a glittery star—the one she wore all the time.
The figure waved back. I watched it again and again, unable to believe what I was seeing. Was it a ghost? My imagination? Or something else? The next evening, Max took me outside. “Ellie said she’d always be here,” he whispered. And then, from behind the treehouse, someone stepped forward—it wasn’t Ellie. It was Ava, Ellie’s best friend. She had been sneaking into the yard wearing Ellie’s old sweater, keeping a promise to Ellie: to look out for Max and help him not feel so alone. “Ellie told me to come sometimes,” she said quietly.
“So Max would still feel like someone was there.” We cried, together—Max, Ava, and me. Now, every night, we wave. Max, Richard, and I. Sometimes Ava joins too. We sit under the treehouse and tell stories about Ellie. The pain is still there, but it feels a little lighter now. A little more full of love. Because Ellie was right—dying doesn’t mean gone forever. It just means different.