Still in the Game

Two days after my thirteenth birthday, my father had a stroke. That sentence still feels strange to write. Until then, I was mostly worried about tennis, school, video games, and whether I could beat my friends at anything involving competition. Then suddenly, I was learning words like ICU, physiotherapy, recovery, caregiver, and neuroplasticity. Over the next few years, I watched my father fight his way back. I watched my mother hold our family together. I learned how to look after my sister, how to take responsibility, and how to stop waiting for life to become easy before I started living it again. There were hospital rooms, poker nights, tennis matches, family trips, mistakes, jokes, and many small wins that didn't look important from the outside. But they mattered. This is my story of growing up in the middle of uncertainty - and learning that sometimes the bravest thing you can do is keep going.