How My Daughter’s Death Changed My Relationship With Time

“I long for the innocence I once had as a child.”

June on her last Halloween — photo by author

“Picture yourself as a little girl. Remember what it felt like to be in your body and free of worry. Go back to that time.”

I’m in the yoga studio.

Immediately, I see June’s face. June, our daughter who passed away from neuroblastoma when she was eighteen months old, never experienced what it was like to be in her body, worry free.

I see the outline of her face. Her bright blue eyes. Her heart-shaped lips. The way her naked brow furrowed when she was mad. Naked because the chemo took every last hair.

Instantly, I see and feel the warmth of my daughter’s presence who is no longer with me.

………………….

I arrived to yoga ten minutes late because my son refused to buckle in the car seat. My daughter forgot her required socks for the gym play space. I didn’t leave us enough time for the variables that inevitably come with every venture out of the house. I turned the car back amidst my children’s screams in the backseat.

I stayed calm.

Just socks, I thought. He has to be buckled for safety, it’s the law. I rationalized my motherly decisions despite knowing they were right. I never yelled or sped to make up for lost time.

I hate time. I know what you must think: It’s because I don’t know how to manage it which is partly true. But the reason for that is because I’m constantly trying to persuade time to work in my favor. I’m trying to squeeze a little more out of each minute. Because I know one day the minutes will end.

Like on the days when it’s 3:35pm and I am rewriting a paragraph of an essay. My daughter’s bus arrives at 3:39pm. I’d rather have the extra two minutes to write, and then sprint to the bus, than lollygag my way there without claiming the minutes before as mine.

I fill the minutes of my day as if I am shoving cotton in an already filled-to-the-brim stuffed animal. Nobody wants a pawless bear. Usually, there’s cotton overflowing and trailing behind. Proof that each minute was lived to its fullest. A fluffy reminder of the minutes I seized.

………………….

Stephen King wrote in his memoir ‘On Writing’ that the best time to write is when you don’t have time. As I work with time, not against it, I gobble it up with urgency. The minutes feel that much more crucial and therefore, satisfying when I work until there are virtually none.

When I live devouring the last few minutes of every activity, I digest each individual one.

It doesn't stop with writing, however, because I have applied this concept to my entire life. Consequently, by the end of the day, I feel as full as the minutes I packed and fluffed with writing, listening, playing, cleaning, cooking, praying, meditating, dancing, sleeping. Trying to enjoy every minute as if it were the last. Bitterly aware that moments do eventually become one’s last.

………………….

But then, “It’s just yoga,” I thought with a deep sigh, as I set out for the gym with my kids in tow, for a second time.

Time. Oh, sweet time.

………………….

I unrolled my mat and threw myself into the last minute of meditation before the physical work began. I needed another 60 minutes of meditation to gather my composure, but one sufficed.

Tears pooled under my closed eyelids after hearing the instructor’s words. They bubbled with cool, quenching pressure as I squeezed them further shut. I didn’t want the instructor to notice me crying because I was new to the class. I feared audible sobs as the music changed to a familiarly painful, yet cathartic song. Purifying, vulnerable tears trickled onto the mat.

The mere thought of childhood innocence made me cry. It perfectly encompassed everything June was before the brutal cancer treatment. It also encompassed everything that was taken from me when she was diagnosed.

Since I cannot recreate a worry free childhood memory, my mind wanders to what my little face looked like. My round features. My bleach blonde hair.

As I peered in on the little girl from the yoga mat, time stopped. We stood face to face. I stared into her eyes. We existed together. We were one and the same.

We both knew June. It was the little girl I once was that I so often called upon after she was diagnosed. I saw her in the reflection of June. I wondered odd things like how would she have lived differently if she knew her daughter would one day be diagnosed with cancer? I imagined someone telling her that her future daughter would have cancer and would die. I tried to imagine her reaction as I watched the innocence drained entirely from her life.

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered into the empty dark space hovering above me as I laid on the mat.

“For what?” the little girl asked.

I didn’t want to scare her, despite knowing she, too, had lived the unfathomable.

“Pain, anguish, and heartbreak will become fast friends, but you’re worth more.”

“Heartbreak?” It was the most unbearable.

“Use it to help you fulfill the person you were meant to be.” I said. I was trying to prepare myself for the worst. If I began with the little girl, maybe we would both be more prepared for when June became sick. As if time was not linear.

………………….

Later, after yoga ended, I conjured a memory of myself as a little girl who ran on a beaten path through the woods. The wonderment in my eyes shone as brightly as the green leaves in the spring sun on passing trees.

“Sassafrass!” I tore a leaf from a sapling, crumpled it in my palm and lifted it to my nose just before I leapt over an exposed root. I closed my eyes, inhaling the sweet lemony smell. For a second, I saw infinitely. I never saw cancer.

I was carefree.

I long for that time.

………………….

My longing has grown more deeply with age. I long for old friendships that have come and gone. I long for the future and the past.

I long for the days I spent with June and to watch my oldest daughter grow into the beautiful woman she will one day become.

I long for more time with June before she was diagnosed. For more time with her thereafter. To have those last two weeks of her life back before we knew the cancer had returned. Before we found out she would die.

Daily, I long for hope and peace of mind.

But mostly, I long for more time. If I didn’t have hope or peace of mind, it wouldn’t matter if I had more time with June.

Time is the most valuable currency in life.

More time in the day. More time with my kids. More time to do the things I love. More time to cook a simple meal. More time to phone old friends. More time to deeply sleep. More time to enjoy the little things we don’t have time for.

Just, more.

………………….

I remember the adult I was before June was diagnosed. I rushed to work so I could pump in the car in the dark in the parking garage before start of my nursing shift at the hospital. I rushed because I wanted to spend an extra few minutes breastfeeding June, rocking her, before I left. Because it was so hard to pull myself away. I’ll never regret waking up at 4:30am to spend those mornings before work with her.

After work, I hurried home to see my two girls before they fell asleep. My nursing shift was 12 hours, but usually ended somewhere between 13 and 14. When I pulled out of the parking garage, it was as dark as it had been when I had arrived. The entire day was gone.

Even before June became sick, my body knew the value of time in relation to my children. Time away from them made me feel selfish for working.

“Can I return to work after Christmas?” I once asked my boss after giving birth to June. I knew the response. I’d already used up my three months of unpaid family medical leave.

Without any choice, but to likely lose my job, June attended her first day of daycare exactly three months after she was born on December 22nd.

My heart broke.

“Why won’t the government mandate more time to be with our babies?” I said to a coworker in the breakroom as I scrolled photos of June the daycare had sent. Tears forming in my eyes.

Time.

………………….

I think of the little girl I once was. The last bit of naivety she retained and carried into adulthood was the notion that there was always more time.

Then, I was told June had cancer and quickly I watched the span of time disappear. I was reduced to one unbearable moment. I could no longer imagine a future.

I try to recreate what my life was like before June had cancer. It’s a wound I attempt to heal, but it’s no use, it’s butter on the burn. It’s a bandaid when I need stitches. Regardless of how I care for myself, there will always be a scar and the purity of my motherhood will forever be tarnished.

But I haven’t given up. So, I thread the needle, on the mat, and practice connecting my broken heart to the life that exists around me. In many ways, it’s a new life for the same, more damaged me. I lean into it. Befriend it. I acknowledge it which gives me temporary relief. I tell it, “I see you,” because that’s what everyone else is doing these days.

I see you fear.
I see you anxiety.
I see you sadness.
I see you, there, alone.
I see you suffering.
I see you broken heart.
I see you chaotic and destructive thoughts.
I see you death.
I see you time, vanishing from beneath my chin.

By acknowledging my broken heart, I lend myself a bit more time to just be me.