'What I feared most after my daughter died saved my life.'

This article was originally published on Medium.

The world became a terrifying and unpredictable place after our daughter June was diagnosed with cancer. It only grew worse as we spent a large part of the year isolated in a hospital room. Furthermore, I was pregnant.

I forgot how to interact with ordinary people in common spaces like the grocery store. It was simple, between us existed an invisible divide: I had been touched by paediatric cancer, and for all I knew, they hadn't.

I padded my life with oncologists and nurses. The only exception, was my OBGYN. Although, she too, had been touched by paediatric cancer because she provided me with meticulous care during a tumultuous pregnancy with June. These were my safe people. I lived in fear of everyone else, especially those from my life from before we knew June was sick.

When we weren't hospital bound due to chemotherapy or blood infections, we spent time in our home. Life outside was reduced to a picture frame window. Looking out the window was like looking through the objective lens, or wrong end, of a telescope. People, animals, and cars appeared blurry and far away. They might as well have been Mars or Pluto advertising an entirely unattainable way of life.

Before June's diagnosis, circumstances of our normal daily life included an infant and toddler, and life's expectations were pretty benign. We anticipated the most basic things in life. A phone call or visit with a loved one, a new show to stream, and for me, a hot cup of coffee, a tarot reading, and a tidy house.

When June became sick our future was erased. Anticipation, now laden with anxiety, shifted from life's basic daily blessings to the next doctor's visit, dreaded round of chemo, and the constant question of whether June and our family would survive it all.

The idea of interacting with people who didn't know June had cancer caused me the most turmoil. Her disease became a badge I wore which resembled a gruesomely bloodied, still beating heart. Without any choice, the badge became my new identity. One that I could not leave in the car while I ran into the store to buy eggs. An unspeakably heinous disease had taken over our life and permanently tagged itself as ours. I searched for ways to cover it up, so I wasn't so exposed and vulnerable. Treatment combined with COVID made it easy. I just stopped leaving the house.

As I watched the blurry, narrow world unfold outside, whispers of life continued to seep through the cracks in the foundation.

Like word of a new store opening in our vacant Maine town which boasted both a bakery and a fish market. Mum friends were probably excited. In my old life, I would have been too. I didn't have any clue, however, if anyone was excited because no one shared it with me.

For some time, after June became sick, the thought of the market offended me. The blueprint was representative of a definite future which hovered over my indefinite reality. Must be nice, I thought, jealous of the inanimate design.

June was so sick and yet, people still had the nerve to host dinner parties that required expensive wine and caviar and the occasional dozen oysters.

One morning, driving to the hospital, I impulsively turned into the market and found myself walking through its doors. I recoiled in my pregnant, achy body at the sight of regular, smiling people.

The tangy smell of saltwater mixed with freshly baked French bread awakened my shrivelled taste buds.

I walked up to a stand in the middle of the store and grabbed two fancy breads, one a chocolate chip banana and the other, a zucchini, for the oncologists I'd encounter after changing places with my husband. A tiny token of my appreciation for the people who dedicated their lives to children with cancer.

This is a side note, but over the course of nearly a year of treatment, I had never brought the oncologists or nurses gifts or homemade goods. I never offered flowers or thank you notes, as many of my own patients had done for me over the years. I was in the throes of my daughter's cancer treatment and barely able to shower and get dressed. Still, my lack of outward graciousness, weighed heavily on my heart. I'd like to think that gratitude emanated in the energetic field of my badged, bloody, broken heart and wasn't entirely lost in the actions and words I was unable to produce.

We were beginning the consolidation phase of June's treatment which was the last of leg of the journey. Our family would no longer be separated for more than two weeks at a time. We were through the worst, and June had been declared no evidence of disease (NED). If there existed a safe time to venture into an unknown public space during treatment, it was then. It was while, despite June still being very sick, there existed so much hope. At times, I actually believed we could rewrite the future and a sliver of control was regained.

I dumped my items, including the fancy breads, onto the counter while my sunken eyes averted the cashier standing at the register.

"Is this your first?" she asked, scanning my items.

"Third," I said, noticing her beautiful silver hair woven into a long braid trailing down her back.

"Oh, then you know what you're doing!"

Relief. That was it.

She placed the items in a bag and I dragged my pregnant feet out the door. I hoisted myself into the drivers seat, tossing the breads beside me, and wailed hot tears into the steering wheel.

I had done it. I entered a space that wasn't my house or the hospital or the obstetrics office. I saw people who knew nothing about me. I didn't burst into tears or worse, flames, which in the hellfire of my mind was very possible.

I survived.

A few days later on my drive to the hospital, I stopped again.

This time, there was another woman at the register. I approached the line casting my eyes toward the floor. As I pulled my wallet from my pocket I heard someone exclaim from behind me, "This is her! The mum I was telling you about — "

Do they know about June?

"It's her third," she said.

"Oh," smiled the dark-haired woman behind the counter. "I have three myself and I ran a Montessori school for many years while my children were growing up."

I mustered a polite smile. Relief, again, that was it.

I picked up the brown paper bag from the counter. As I walked to the door, I lifted my pregnant feet so they didn't make a scuffing sound on the floor.

My visits at the market went much like that over several months, except for the month I didn't visit at all which was when we found out June's cancer had returned.

Eventually, however, I made my way back because the market was there to stay and because I passed by it twice a day.

I was 41 weeks pregnant, my oldest daughter was in school, and my husband was at work. I was no longer racing to return to June. She wasn't waiting for me to exchange roles with her father in a hospital room anymore. She wasn't at home with her grandmother, waiting for me to return from my obstetric appointment. Since June had been born, it was a rare moment that we weren't together.

To shake the nagging feeling that she was somewhere still waiting for me, I filled the dead space. Mostly, I filled it with tears. I filled it by sitting on the couch in my pyjamas and watching reruns of Below Deck. By answering the phone and listening to the person on the other end. I filled it by sitting in the quiet of the house and closing my eyes, searching for June in my third eye. Sometimes, I sprawled my heavy body in the rocking chair in her room and watched the orbs dance around on her ceiling. I filled the other bit of time Googling what orbs looked like and typed questions such as, "Could an orb be a deceased loved one?"

Then, when the dead space of just me filling it became overbearing, I wandered aimlessly into the market and saw the smiling faces of the two women from behind the counter.

"That baby has to come out soon!" they said in unison from the counter, as I stared longingly, immensely pregnant, at the wall of wine.

Then, I'd place my Pain au Chocolat on the counter and the woman with the silver hair would ring me up. My gaze sunken so low it threatened to pull me to the floor. I'd head for the door, galumphing like a seal in my pregnant body, clutching the little brown paper bag between my two flippers.

After I gave birth, I wandered in with my son. He was a few weeks old. The ladies fawned over him and remarked on his beautiful blue eyes.

"Like his older sisters," was all I could say. Thinking of the swirling world that existed inside my beautiful June's eyes.

I stood next to the stroller, teary-eyed, with a surprising sense of pride. I was a mother again. I had never stopped being a mother, but my son represented a new beginning, a fresh start, and for the first time, I felt it. I avoided the fancy breads, and purchased my usual pastry.

I loaded up the car with my new baby, then cried into the steering wheel as I had done on every occasion prior. I cried for June, who was gone. For my son, whom I couldn't figure out how to love. For my life that felt like a big open sore of a secret. For the suffering I wore in my eyes, my dirty hair, and yesterday's clothes. For the shell of a human I had become. I cried for the life I didn't get which I could see in the reflection of the kind smiles and shiny faces of the versed mothers from behind the counter.

Many days after June died my only ritual was to visit the ladies at the market. With each new day, I began to notice how good it felt to be cast in their portrayal of a mother's life.

When eventually, I allowed their eyes to meet mine, I remembered what it felt like to just be a mum with a baby.

One day, as I sat crying in the parking lot, nibbling my pastry, there was a tap on the window. Brushing the tears from my eyes, I peered out to see the silver hair.

I froze.

I must have left something behind.

I cracked the window, "We just wanted to check on you to make sure you hadn't fallen asleep," she said.

Startled, I just stared.

"I didn't want to bother you but we wanted to make sure you were okay."

I'm not okay.

My baby died.

The cancer came back.

I have a new baby that I don't know how to love.

"I'm making a few phone calls while he sleeps," I said, gesturing to the backseat where my son laid awake, cooing.

"Okay, hun, glad to hear. Sorry for bothering you."

You didn't bother me. Without knowing what I have been through, you've still managed to make me feel seen and cared for. Thank you.

All the things I wanted to say, I couldn't.

Instead, I rolled up the window.

June's diagnosis stole my identity. Her death took my voice. But by creating new rituals, I wore my broken life and heart into something more tolerable. By leaving the house, I created new pathways that resembled comfort. In the loneliest of days, I forged new friendships and learned that at my very worst, I was still lovable and that life was still livable. I was no longer looking at a faraway life. I was living in the scene I'd always feared, but incrementally, finding solace.

I've taught myself so much since June died. Including to never underestimate the power of a mother. Then again, I've learned so much, too.

Like to never underestimate the kindness of a stranger, either.

Read more from author Taryn Jarboe below:

My Last Nursing Job Was For My Dying Daughter

How Our Home Changed After Our Daughter Became Sick

Feature image: Supplied.