My Daughter’s Birth Chart Is One Way I Keep Her Alive

“Who would have thought you could build on the memory of someone who no longer physically exists?”

Note from author: I previously posted this piece several month ago, but recently, I took some time to rework it. I felt it important to share again because although it’s the same piece, it’s taken on a completely different life. Thank you for reading.

Our daughter June, an Earth sign, was born on the cusp of Virgo-Libra on September 22nd. The year she was born, the twenty-second day of September, was also the first day of Autumn. June, rooted in Mother Earth, traveled into the world on the first day of the first season of the rest of her life.

But June, the most astrologically grounded of my three children, has departed Mother Earth. She passed away at eighteen months old, after nearly a year long battled with neuroblastoma.

She’s taken wings, and today, soars above the material world. June is in the heavens. My heavens. Where the clouds are fluffy pillows perfect for midday naps and the stars twinkle all hours of the day.

How does an earthly being become a celestial being? There exists a paper thin threshold between life and death. I know because I watched June cross it.

I wonder, are the stars and the galaxies part of the material world or part of the heavens? Does it matter?

It matters to me because I have two children here in the material world, but I don’t only have two children. I have three children, and I must know where my second born now resides.

I struggle to pinpoint the elusive Death which in it’s transformative power has completely changed my life for better and for worse.

Death is not the end. It is not stagnant. It may be the end to one thing, which is life, but in my world, Death is also a beginning. I’ll explain why.

Love exists and grows within a family much like the beautifully layered, and fused oyster shells. Neither are linear. Neither are two-dimensional. Love bonds with love creating a remarkable, unbreakable cement chain of strength. A haven for other forms of happiness to spawn. Like that of the oyster bed.

Many books have told me that when a child is permanently taken away, the parents are left with so much love, but no where for it to go. For me this implies an end to growth, and an end to love. A dead end. This is grief, some say.

My love for June is not a dead end.

I feel love for June that isn’t weighted in grief. An active, pure love. Not a love where June’s death is the shadow trailing behind it. My love for June isn’t always sorrowful. It’s an undying layer of our family that continues to grow from the mere fact that June is and will forever be our baby.

One form of joy for a parent that arises from the bond to a child is in the anticipation of who a child will one day become. How will they grow? What will their personalities will be like? What sort of things will they enjoy? Will they be funny or serious? Who will this tiny creature born from my womb grow to be?

After planting seeds in the spring we wait patiently for the day the seeds reach their fullest potential. After nurturing and tending to the seeds all summer long, the day finally arrives when what we planted months before is in full bloom.

The greatest gift I could ever be given in this life as a parent is to see my children in full bloom.

Yet, I will never know June as an adolescent or adult. I am not a parent who has been afforded the luxury of knowing my child for the rest of my life. A luxury I was blissfully unaware of existed prior to June getting sick.

From time to time, I read the astrology of my living children. Reading their astrological charts brings me a bit of knowledge I otherwise wouldn’t have had. It gives me understanding, empathy, and a lot of perspective.

It brings me joy to see that strong personalities and characteristics which surface daily in our household are innate to my children’s beings, and not a reflection of my parenting.

It helps me to have patience and allows me to breathe through character differences and squabbles. It reminds me we are learning how to live our individual lives collectively. We are not extensions of one another. Each person brings something different to the dinner table at night which keeps our family alive and engaged.

I can’t help but smile when I see my children exhibit their shadows and flex their strengths. Like when my eldest daughter, who is a Scorpio, stings me with her venom for the fifth time of the day. Or when on a long drive home, she begins telling me about the peculiar ways of the world, flexing her childlike intuition.

I nurture the goodness in my children. I love them more than I’ve ever loved anything in my life. It’s impenetrable love. Watching them grow into their personalities is mystical and enchanting. A slow crescendo to the great reveal of an adult. A gift I know never to take for granted.

There is mysticism, too, in who we will become as we grow together as a family. Who we will become despite June not physically being present with us.

June is gone, but she is still very much here with us. Each person in our family carries her with them in a different way, and I trust that she’s close-by, watching us grow.

I ask June to pay close attention to her older sister, and to give her a beyond-the-veil-nudge to make the right choice. I ask June to embrace her when she’s having a hard day like when she misses June, but can’t find the words to explain. I ask June to help her older sister grow into the beautiful person I know she is meant to be.

June’s influence is invisible, yet powerful. June is the water, the sunshine, the air, we all need. She is the nutrient our family so badly needs to grow. June is also the seed. One I will continually plant for the rest of my life.

I read June’s astrological chart when I am done with my living children’s charts. I read my living children’s chart’s first so I can get a sense if the source is reliable or not. I am a believer, but not a sucker.

I have the living proof comparison in front of me as to whether the chart is speaking the truth. I compare the chart to the child. The child to the chart. Once I am sufficiently convinced of utter truths about my living children, I move onto June’s chart.

I enter June’s place of birth, her date of birth, and the time at which she was born: 1:43pm, and click the button on a free chart reading website that reveals to me more than I already know about June.

I enter this very important information into several websites which all wield a similar tale about June. The story of whom June would have one day become when she reached full bloom.

Reading June’s chart is very different from reading my living children’s charts. June died when she was one-and-a-half. She is not in front of me as living testament to what I read. I am forced to fill the gaps. To let my imagination take me places my mind skirts around.

As I read June’s chart, I learn things about June I would never have learned unless she were here with me now. Parts of her that I wasn’t privy to seeing grow. Aspects of her personality I will never know. Who June might have been if she’d had the chance to grow up.

Can you imagine your child never growing up? Seems cruel of me to ask, but neither could have I.

Fair and just, responsible and successful, earnest, independent, optimistic, confident, free-spirited, self-expressive and creative. These are some of the overarching adjectives used to describe June in her birth chart. These are adjectives I can only imagine her growing into as she one day grew into herself. I’ll never truly know.

Elegant. Elegant hurts. It stays with me. June was the most elegant one-and-a-half year old you could ever meet. Elegant reminds me of her long, dainty, pianist fingers. June was just elegant.

The birth chart paints a beautiful picture of who June would have been if she were still alive. It aligns with everything I know about June. I believe it and accept it as truth because there is nothing to tell me otherwise. It allows me to get to know June more intimately despite her being gone. It accompanies my wild imagination in its pursuit to work through her not being here, and to not allow Death to be the end.

I am building on the memory of June. Who would have thought you could build on the memory of someone who no longer physically exists? I could never have imagined, yet here I am.

I can never remember her full birth chart, therefore every time I read it, it’s as if I am learning about June for the first time, every time. It’s invigorating and heartbreaking.

The birth chart is also the ghost of June. It’s the shadow that follows me in the night. It keeps me awake and wondering what life would have been like if we hadn’t lost her and if she hadn’t died so brutally of cancer.

The birth chart states that those born on September 22nd are singled out by fate. An ill summary of June’s life.

It also states that those born on September 22nd hold the strong belief that everything will work out. Makes me think she might have been a little bit like me.

On days I enter June’s birth chart into various sites, I turn curiosity into reality. The information at my fingertips has the power to reignite the spirit of June. Momentarily, I bask in the thought of what every parent dreams the day their baby is born: who my June would have one day become.

Death is the beginning of an end here on earth, but what comes after no one truly knows. The day June died my life was sprinkled with seeds. I don’t have to pay much attention to them because they will grow and fuse on their own much like the oyster spat. What and how many layers will form, I have no way of knowing, which is all part of the fun. My role is cemented in the group.

I didn’t give up when June became sick. I didn’t give up when she was diagnosed with cancer. I didn’t give up when she died.

My role is to never give up, and I am finally beginning to believe, I never will.