My daughter died of cancer. Here are my tips for parents.

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 illness.

In the first months after Ana’s death, grief manifested itself in chest pain and an inability to do much more than sit in my garden and watch the birds near my bird feeders. I stopped working for about six months, outsourcing my freelance marketing projects to contractors as 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 took me a long time, but I’m finally okay with not holding on to every memory, ritual, and symbol that reminds me of Ana.

As we approach the seventh anniversary of Ana’s loss, I have neither the need nor the desire to continue telling the story of her death. I want to remember her life and the unique things that made Ana, well…Ana. There is one memory in particular that is still sharp and clear in my mind: Ana’s imaginary world. She called him Arkomo.

Ana loved the little things. She collected them like a treasure: tiny stuffed animals. Shells that fit in the palm of your hand. The world’s smallest plastic frog.

When she was little, Ana would gather her toy collection into a huge pile in the center of the living room and throw a big tantrum if I tried to clean it up. She would sit and play next to the pile until, inevitably, she got tired. Then she would curl up on stuffed animals and take a nap. She was like a little dragon who fiercely guarded her gold.

Ana eventually moved from these piles of toys to more structured worlds. She built cities with wooden blocks, Legos or cardboard. She placed her smallest toys there. She played with them for hours, dragging her younger sister, Emily, to these magical places. Ana has always been the boss. His animals have always had a main role in each adventure.

For a very brief period, Ana’s worlds dominated my home. They appeared on the dining room table and on the floor of the den. They appeared in Ana’s room and Emily’s room. They appeared on my coffee table, taking over until I asked the girls to wrap it up and put it away. These initial worlds would shape what would become Arkomo – Ana’s most beloved world.

Ana built Arkomo from clay, Legos, pieces of Playmobil sets and several Polly Pocket dolls – the kind that were about an inch tall. It was a world that gradually unfolded on Ana’s dresser with trees, houses, roads made of red and brown vinyl bricks (from a local store that sold model train supplies).

She made a sign saying “Welcome to Arkomo” – a name she came up with herself – and populated the little world with ridiculously small toys called Squinkies. They were rubber people and animals about half an inch tall.

Arkomo’s foundations were fragile. It was made from blocks of wood held together by blobs of clay with baked polymer components. The whole thing was shaky and precarious.

Every time I put Ana’s clothes away, half a dozen Arkomoians fell from the dresser like vinyl raindrops. I have always put them back in place diligently, trying to restore them to where they were when they fell. I would find Squinkies on Ana’s floor for years after that dresser – and Ana – were long gone.

Arkomo has acquired valuable real estate in Ana’s cluttered bedroom. One day, I complained about it to a friend who, with a raised eyebrow, advised me to clean it while Ana was at school. I couldn’t do that. Ana had spent hours building and expanding Arkomo. Destroying it would have broken his heart.

Like parents who don’t want to create little sociopaths, I worried. I thought maybe I was spoiling Ana and she wouldn’t learn to clean up her messes if I didn’t curb the toys. I worried that Ana might be getting too old for fantasy worlds.

Ana finally reclaimed the space above her dresser. She turned 10, then 11, and she wanted a stereo and speakers. She became obsessed with My Little Pony and Funko Pop vinyl toys. She began collecting gems, incense and candles. She needed a place to display it all. She removed Arkomo, tossing the contents of the small world into a box for easy retrieval.

At the time Ana was diagnosed with cancer, Arkomo rarely resurfaced. When she took out the box, it was to collect a plastic tree or a small house for a school project. About a month ago, while cleaning out the den, I found this box. I knew what was in it. I opened it anyway.

Arkomo was still there: the plastic animals, the vinyl roads, the Playmobil trees. The pieces of clay that held everything together are now crumbled and dry.

I don’t remember the last time Ana played with this thing. It was probably at least ten years ago, probably longer. I learned, after seven years of mourning, that the last moments do not always announce themselves.

Sometimes they are silent and subversive. For every last day of school, there are a dozen less grand ones hard : the last time she watched SpongeBob SquarePants, the last time she had a sleepover, and the very last origami crane she ever folded. I don’t remember the last time Ana played with Arkomo.

I don’t remember the last time, before this year, that I opened the box containing these things that Ana had loved. I don’t remember the last time I sat on the ground and played next to the child whose face I hadn’t seen in so many years.

I wish I had taken a photo of Arkomo when it was still on Ana’s dresser. I wish I paid more attention as she brought her world to life. I wish I had written it all down.

This is what I would tell you, if you asked me for parenting advice – My God. Write it down. Write it all down.

On March 22, Ana will have seven years off. It’s a magic number: seven. A 7 year old child can invent entire worlds. If you break a mirror, you will have seven years of bad luck. There are seven colors in the rainbow. Seven Chakras. Seven musical notes.

Seven years is almost exactly half of Ana’s lifespan. She died at the age of 15, just seven weeks before her 16th birthday. I don’t know what any of this means or if it means anything. Time is a construct, especially when your child dies before you. These expectations we have for ourselves and our children make no sense.

As our children grow up (or even if they don’t), the details we remember of their childhood—of the children they were and that only we got to see—fade. This loss is usually mitigated by the promise of their life and future. Growing up is always traumatic. We lose a special kind of magic as we age. But not growing up is even more traumatic.

The dusty, broken remains of Ana’s fantasy world reminded me that the child she was – the child only I truly knew – was gone. The woman she was meant to become is also gone. There are no more firsts or durations for Ana.

On the seventh anniversary of her death, I wanted to share something about Ana that only a few of us still remember. I wanted to invite you to Arkomo, a place governed by the smallest memory and imagination of a girl we miss deeply. Ana was there. She was incredible. She invented entire worlds. Now you know something private and wonderful about him. Take it with you. Create your own worlds. Remember Ana when you gaze upon tiny treasures.

Jacqueline Dooley is a freelance writer and essayist living in New York’s Mid-Hudson Valley. Her essays on grief and parenting have appeared in The Washington Post, HuffPost, Modern Loss, Al Jazeera, Pulse, Longreads and more. You can find a lot of his work on Mediumwhere she writes regularly about grief, parenting, and other things. You can contact her via her website, https://www.jacquelinedooley.com/contact-me.

Note: This article was originally published in March 2024 and is being shared again as part of HuffPost’s “Best of Personal” series.

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