When my daughter Ana was 11, she was diagnosed with a rare cancer called inflammatory myofibroblastic tumor (IMT). Five years later, on March 22, 2017, Ana died from her disease.
In those first months after Ana died, grief manifested as an ache in my chest and an inability to do much more than sit in my yard and watch the birds at my feeders. I stopped working for about six months, outsourcing my freelance marketing projects to subcontractors while I moved through life in a daze.
As each year passes, my grief shifts and changes. It never fades. It’s just… different. For me, surviving grief requires adaptation. It’s taken me a long time, but I’m finally OK with not hanging on to every single memory, ritual and symbol that reminds me of Ana.
As I approach the seventh anniversary of losing Ana, I don’t need or want to keep retelling the story of her death. I want to remember her life and the unique things that made Ana, well… Ana. There’s one memory, in particular, that is still sharp and clear in my mind — Ana’s imaginary world. She called it Arkomo.
Ana loved tiny things. She collected them like treasure : Minuscule stuffed animals. Shells that fit into the palm of her hand. The world’s smallest plastic frog.
When she was a toddler, Ana would gather her collection of toys into a huge pile in the center of the living room and throw a major tantrum if I tried to clean it up. She would sit and play beside the pile until, inevitably, she got tired. Then she’d curl up on some stuffed animals and take a nap. She was like a little dragon fiercely guarding her gold.
Ana eventually moved on from those piles of toys to more structured worlds. She built cities out of wooden blocks, Legos or cardboard. She placed her tiniest toys inside them. She played with them for hours, drawing her younger sister, Emily, into these magical places. Ana was always the boss. Her animals always had starring roles in every adventure.
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