June Sent Me a Message on the Second Anniversary of her Death

“I must trust that each step forward is toward a new beginning our family so deserves.”

The weeks leading up to the second anniversary of June’s death on March 13th are a blur. It’s been two years since she passed away from neuroblastoma.

The days have been filled with throwing things from the cabinets and corners of our house into oversized cardboard boxes, constantly texting the realtor about whatever the current issue is, followed by endless nail biting once our home of eight years officially hit the market.

The extra moments I have are spent on making arrangements for our move out of state such as enrolling my daughter in kindergarten (an unforeseen and lengthy process) and randomly searching the internet about the location of our future home.

Daily, I question whether we are making the right decision by uprooting our family from the only home our children have ever known. From the only home June ever knew. I can no longer envision what our lives will look like in three months, but I must trust that each step forward is toward a new beginning our family so deserves.

I’ve lived the anniversary of June’s death twice in the last two weeks due to the extraneous stressors involving the move. Once, I briefly thought it was the twelfth of March when it was actually the seventh.

On this second anniversary of June’s death I wasn’t able to write about her. I couldn’t dedicate my day to her as I had wanted and imagined. Instead, I was home, busy with our one year old son.

I found some time for June in the moments when we played outside. I watched birds fly overhead. As I stared into the blue sky I wondered if it had been that blue the day June died.

Our house went Live on the market on Thursday March 7th which explains why I thought it was also the eve of June’s death. Something I have learned since June died is that when one major life stressor exists, it inevitably bleeds into another. Thus creating a chaotic confusion in the mind and exacerbating current stressors.

House showings quickly filled the new Home Sellers app I installed on my phone as the four of us packed ourselves into the car and set off for a weekend getaway meant to maximize the space and time of showing the house.

Car conversation drifted between praying the house would sell to how much we would miss the home that had been so good to us for the last eight years. My husband and I whispered to one another in the front seat of the car, as our two living children played in the backseat, about the beautiful and haunting memories we would always have of our Maine home.

Memories which at every attempt at closing my eyes on the anniversary of June’s death flooded my mind creating a flawless picture of June.

Images of June in her healthiest state when she was declared cancer free sitting on the living room floor, stacking miniature cups of Play-Doh, a favorite pastime. Images of June on the day she died. Had you met June only four months before she died, you might not have recognized her on the day of her passing. Cancer took June’s health. Then it took nearly everything else just before it took her.

I watched the cancer take June from me, her father, and her older sister. But when I looked at June, dying in the last hours of her life, I only saw my precious, radiant baby. I didn’t see what a stranger or a friend might have seen. I didn’t see the sickness of the cancer that had taken over. I saw only my beautiful June, in the same light, as the day she was born. A mother’s lens.

Scenes from June’s life flicker on a magnificent omni screen of my closed eyelids. A permanent screen, the blessing inside of the curse, which allows my memories of June to replay any time of day or night.

The images inevitably come with thoughts. The brain can be a torture chamber when all is quiet, and I am alone. The anniversary of June’s death is no exception.

The most penetrating thought looming over me on the second anniversary of June’s death was related to “What more could I have done?” A question I already have the answer to.

As a mother, when your child dies, you forever feel in every cell of your body, there was more that you could have done had you had the chance. All while knowing, there was nothing more you could have humanly done. We did everything we could have for June. My rational brain knows that there was nothing more to do. Yet, I am left with the void of June and with that void accompanies the knowing that she is no longer here and I as her mother could not save her.

When I think about the day June died feelings of victimhood no longer arise as frequently, although admittedly I still feel like this is all so unfair.

There’s also a more complex emotion associated with June’s death that ripples through my body: June crossed the threshold of death alone. Physically, our family was by her side. We were laying with her as she died. But ultimately, I could not make the journey with her. Nor was I there waiting for her on the other side. She was accepted into the world of death by someone else. Likely a stranger. All I can hope for is that stranger felt like home to her. That she was not confused, and that there wasn’t a longing for her to return. That her one-and-a-half year old innocence brought her directly to where she was destined to go.

At the end of the day, any day, the culmination of thoughts can become too much. There are times when I feel all is lost. June died. She faced something I have never had to face. Without choice, she crossed the threshold alone, without me, her Mama, by her side. As a mother, you always want to be standing by your children’s side. Especially when they take their first leap into an unknown.

It leaves me wondering if she knows I would have gone with her had I had a choice.

On March 13th, the second anniversary of June’s death, our home went under contract. The notifications began popping up in my Home Sellers app. I couldn’t make sense of it.

The day’s trauma in the midst of moving upheaval had become so much that I couldn’t receive June’s message. It was shrouded in grief, but it’s no coincidence our house went under contract the day of June’s passing. With the two dates aligning, the message I needed so badly became clearer: it’s time to sell our house and move on. June’s giving us permission and I am now able to let go of doubt. The doubt that her father and I aren’t making the best decision by selling our home, the only home June had ever known, and moving our family to an entirely new state. June has sealed our family’s fate of a new beginning.

I am also left with the assurance that despite June crossing into the great unknown alone, she can still find me. She is present even when I cannot feel her around me. Her message suggests she has an influence on how our family’s life will continue to unfold. She’s never too far. She’s aware of the great change we are undertaking and is with us every step of the way. Truly, we have never left one another’s side.