A Breath of Hope By: Anushka Bhatt

 A Breath of Hope

By: Anushka Bhatt

The whistle blew, and Lily took off across the field like a spark on dry grass. Her cleats thudded against the earth as she chased the soccer ball, eyes focused, heart pounding—but not from excitement.

By the time she reached midfield, her lungs tightened like a rope being pulled taut. She stumbled to a stop, bent double, gasping. The sound of cheering faded under the roar in her ears. She fumbled for her inhaler with shaking fingers.

“Lily!” her coach called, concern rising. But Lily couldn’t respond. The breath wouldn’t come.

It wasn’t always like this.

Before asthma, Lily was a blur of movement—hiking, playing tag, racing her older brother to the mailbox. She wore scraped knees like trophies and never sat still for long. But everything changed the day she collapsed during P.E., the nurse rushing over, her mom arriving with wide eyes and a silent hug.

The diagnosis came soon after: moderate to severe asthma. No more spontaneous soccer games. No more playground sprints. No more breathless laughter after races. Only literal breathlessness.

At first, Lily rebelled. She “forgot” her inhaler, refused to sit out of gym class, and tried to keep up with her friends even when her chest screamed otherwise. But she always lost the race—this time, to her own lungs.

One evening, after a particularly rough attack, her mom sat beside her on the porch.

“You’re not broken, you know,” her mom said softly. “You just have to run smarter.”

“Running smarter still means not running as fast,” Lily mumbled.

Her mom smiled. “Maybe. But running at all is still something.”

So Lily changed. She studied her triggers—dust, cold air, stress. She warmed up slowly, used her inhaler before games, and learned when to pause. She found new things too: drawing, singing, and giving small speeches about asthma in health class. When a younger girl in her school got diagnosed, Lily sat with her at lunch and told her: “It’s tough, but you’ll figure it out. I did.”

Years later, Lily stood behind a podium at a local awareness event, a dozen kids watching her with wide eyes.

“I’m not here to tell you that asthma is easy,” she said, holding up her inhaler like a badge. “But I promise—it doesn’t have to stop you. You just have to learn how to breathe through it.”

And she had.

Asthma changed Lily’s life, but it didn’t define it. Challenges don’t disappear—but when we meet them with patience, self-awareness, and resilience, we learn how to live fully in the space between each breath.