Daniel used to be unstoppable. He was the kind of man who would work a twelve-hour day building custom furniture, then come home and still have the energy to cook dinner. He had this way of smiling that made you believe everything would be okay. He was my safe place, my steady ground, and now, watching him fade, I felt like I was standing on quicksand.

Six months ago, we thought we had a lifetime. Then he came home one night, pale and exhausted. The tiredness lingered, deepened, and turned into unexplained bruises and nights when he struggled to catch his breath. The doctor said words that didn’t seem real: aplastic anemia. His own body was destroying his bone marrow, shutting down the very factory that made his blood. Without a stem cell transplant, they said, there was little hope.