September
When I woke up this morning, the month of August was gone. September had quietly snuck in while the world was sleeping. I woke up before the kids, walked downstairs, and crawled under a blanket on the sofa. I opened the computer, and as I began to type realized, Oh my god, it’s September. All year I’ve dreaded that September would come.
Early morning tranquility drained from my body and was replaced with angst. We were already five hours into the month and I hadn’t realized it. Of course I hadn’t realized it, I was sleeping! I made a quick post to Instagram, something I’d already decided upon a day ago. An effort to be both proactive (to raise childhood cancer awareness in honor of June), while trying to take back control of what I cannot. My first attempt of the day to put a label on the meaning of a little piece of June’s life. The post read like this: “September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month”.
Now I write in protest of September. It’s not fair. I want to have a tantrum. I want to scream. Throw myself onto the ground and bang my fists on the hardwood floors. Self-pity is ugly. I want her back. These things won’t bring her back. Bruises on my fists will create new pain. Instead, I cry, safely on the sofa behind my computer. Not on the floor. I don’t have a tantrum. I write. It’s all I can do to channel the hurt out and away from my body. The sticky residual sorrow that won’t leave, I expel through tears.
June turns three years old this month. Can I say that? Does she turn three or would she turn three? It will be three years since I gave birth to her. She will not be here to embrace her third year, but despite that, it’s still her birthday. It counts. To give myself peace surrounding the subject of June’s birthday, I decide June will be one-and-a-half in earth years, and turn three this month. June can have it all. Mama says.
I think about my three year old June. My big girl. Surely she would be walking and talking by now. Her hair grown out. The majority of her teeth in. I wonder if she would look more like her younger brother or her older sister. I decide, coincidentally or not, as the middle child, she’s the perfect combination of both. Our son has her big white teeth. Our daughter has her hair. Not the platinum straight hair that grew back after chemotherapy, the hair from before. The auburn waft that bounced on the top of her head when she sat on my hip and we danced together in the kitchen. My son and oldest daughter have the same round, big, beautiful blue eyes. Their father’s eyes. June’s eyes were different, smaller. Like mine. She had my eyes. Collectively as a family, we represent a few pieces of June’s puzzle, but without June, the puzzle will never be complete. I’m forced to live with this. I must find a way. I think about how several pieces of her puzzle are permanently imprinted on various people in our household. Pieces we can never lose. I look forward to watching our son’s teeth grow in and fall out. I’ll see June in and around him when they do. I’ll wonder if his adult teeth are what June’s would have looked like. I’ll see her when he smiles. I know that despite having lost June, she will never be lost.
In September,
ten days after my thirty-eighth birthday,
two days after my mom’s sixty-first birthday,
two days after Bella’s thirteenth birthday,
twelve days after my Nana’s ninety-fourth
birthday,
and
twenty-one days after my sister’s thirty-sixth
birthday,
June will turn three.
We will have a cake in celebration of her life. She won’t be sitting at the table with us, but she will forever be one of us. Forever a part of the September birthday tribe. Perhaps she’ll be at her own birthday table next to her great-grandmother and our dog Bella, who are also in heaven. When I think about it, birthdays are an earthly creation, so I’ll hope they don’t have other plans and decide to join us instead.
My living babies will blow out June’s candles. As I look at them in amazement, I’ll imagine June wedged between them, exactly where she belongs. My son will smile with excitement as I pull my daughter’s hair back so it doesn’t get caught in the flames as she puffs her cheeks and leans in for the big blow. For a fleeting moment, I’ll see and feel June alive again in both of them. As I let the vision of her go, and I return to reality, I’ll remind myself September is just a month and it’s almost over. It didn’t kill us this year. We will live to see September again, but in the meantime, I’ll be keeping an eye out for another piece to June’s puzzle.
June Helen Jarboe (September 22, 2020 – March 13, 2022)
