She used to say it all started with a whisper.
Not a voice from above—just this quiet knowing deep inside her that somewhere, a child needed her more than anything.
That child was me.
I came into the world with a rare lung condition so unfamiliar, even the nurses were unsure how to treat it. My birth parents didn’t wait for answers. They left before I ever left the NICU. No name. No goodbye. Just silence.
Then came Cassandra Tate.
A schoolteacher. Single. No partner, no high-paying job, no fallback plan. Just relentless determination and a binder stuffed with notes about how to adopt a child.
They told her I’d never live a full life. That I’d always be sick. That she’d spend more nights in hospitals than at home.
She didn’t blink.
She saw past my diagnosis. Past the tubes and charts and warnings. When she held me for the first time, she didn’t see a broken baby—she saw a future. She saw me.
Raising me wasn’t easy. There were long nights when I couldn’t breathe, hospital stays that blurred into weeks, and moments when she had nothing left but faith and exhaustion. But she never gave up. She didn’t always know what she was doing, but she never stopped showing up.
And slowly, things got better. My condition didn’t disappear, but it improved. She fought for every bit of health I gained—every specialist, every therapy, every ounce of hope.
And she never let me feel fragile. She encouraged me to live, not just survive.
That’s how I found track.
It started with small school races—just short sprints—but the moment I started running, I felt free. Like my lungs, though still imperfect, were finally letting me fly.
Mom didn’t know much about athletics, but she learned fast. She never missed a meet. Rain or shine, with papers to grade or lessons to plan, she was there in the stands—cheering louder than anyone.
And then… I started winning. Local races turned into regionals. Regionals into state titles. By senior year, I wasn’t just fast—I was fearless.
Every finish line felt like defiance. Like proof. That I wasn’t weak. That I was more than a diagnosis, more than someone who had been left behind.
Through it all, she stood beside me.
Proud. Teary-eyed. Still calling herself the lucky one.
But I know the truth.
I’m the lucky one.