He was alone in his room while the other kids were surrounded by family. No cards. No balloons. No parents holding his hand. Just a small, pale child in a hospital gown, clutching a worn stuffed elephant. When I offered him a teddy bear, he didn’t smile or reach for it—he simply studied me with wide blue eyes, as if trying to decide if I was real. When I asked if he was scared of me, he quietly said no, explaining that I looked like the bikers on TV who protect people. Then he told me that his mother had died of cancer and his father couldn’t bear to watch another loved one suffer. That truth hit me harder than any punch I’ve ever taken.

When he told me his name was Ethan and asked if he could call me by my club nickname, Bear, something in me shifted. He said the nurses were kind but always busy, and that nights were the scariest. I should’ve walked away. I had my own life and enough problems already. But when I looked at him sitting alone in that bed, I saw a reflection of myself as a child—lonely, afraid, and forgotten. I remembered growing up with a father who drank too much and a mother who worked endlessly. I remembered what it felt like to have no one. So I told him yes—I would be his friend.

I visited him every day. The nurses were cautious at first, even checking my background, but Ethan didn’t care about any of that.