Anna and her dad in Lake Minnewaska, NY, 1997
There was a 24-hour Greek diner across the street and my dad was craving a black coffee and, maybe, a cookie. He didn’t crave much those days, so it was eventful.
We sat in a two-person booth and took off our coats from the cold, dry day with the type of sky he would call “milky white.” He stretched his cracked hands toward me and started asking questions about work and my apartment, anyone new I was dating, the usual. As though it were an ordinary lunch with our usual banter instead of a quick meal at the only place he could physically walk to after his Tuesday chemo treatments at Memorial Sloan Kettering.
I started telling him about a new shirt I bought, the walk my roommate and I took down the East River path toward a new shop at the Seaport, and a new restaurant around the corner from my apartment on Avenue C. As I described the cocktail menu, he wiped the tears from my face that I didn’t know were falling.
“I’m so sad,” I told him. “I don’t want you to die.”
It was about six months before he did, and a year since he was first diagnosed with lung cancer. Every day since that call it had been a constant battle between cherishing every moment and hating them. It’s a unique emotion – one I hadn’t felt until then (and I thought I’d had felt them all!): Desperate to hold onto the moment, but deeply aware of just how fleeting it was, and how it also might be the last.
I tried to soak up every minute with him: taking the bus after work nearly every Friday to spend weekends back home in New Jersey, watching movies, and reading side-by-side. Calling, texting, emailing every day – almost obsessively – and then saving copies or voice recordings. Crying through conversations about grocery lists and reality TV.
I was wearing a forest green v-neck sweater that day at the diner, and my dad told me I looked pretty. I took a picture of myself in the mirror when I got home and cried thinking it might have been our last meal out together. He asked me what we should get for my mom for her birthday and we brainstormed ideas. But I was wondering if he would be around for it, and so the tears came again (and when I think of that moment even now, ten years later, I feel the same). It was almost too much for him to bear, but I couldn’t help it.
When you have a baby, everyone says the same thing: Cherish the time; it all goes by too fast. Moms of one-year-olds, dads of 12-year-olds, grandparents, and so on. But I no longer want to subscribe to that sentiment.
Cherishing every minute of my dad’s last 18 months was the hardest time of my life. Every minute was painful, knowing and feeling like the time was slipping through my fingers like water. I felt crippled beyond repair, unable to enjoy the time without breaking.
So when Ivy, my daughter, was born last August, I didn’t download the photo-tracking apps, or write instant updates down in a journal. I didn’t take photos of her on the monthly milestone mat or take videos of her every move (there are still a lot, though). To me, the idea of deliberately “cherishing every moment” to me feels like it could end, like I’d better hug her extra tight because what if there’s no tomorrow. And I choose not to live with that pressure anymore.
It’s why I didn’t really talk about being pregnant, and only referred to her as an “it.” Why we didn’t have a baby shower or buy anything beyond newborn diapers before she was born. She was my fourth attempt at being a mom, and after three miscarriages you don’t really want to cherish those moments – you want to do the opposite.
Every morning, when I see Ivy greeting me with her crooked toothless smile (two little ones are starting to poke through now), I am so grateful to be her mom. My hugs are always extra tight just because I love squeezing her chubby thighs, and my kisses are extra long because her cheeks are just so soft and delicious that I can’t help it. I spend the days thinking about her and looking at the funny pictures I took the day beforehand, hearting my favorites and wondering where the time has gone as we approach her first birthday.
But I don’t feel sad about it – I feel excited. She doesn’t know it yet, but her personality is so much like my dad’s: stubborn, silly and strong, and I can’t wait to tell her all about him.
My dad’s favorite line from the Torah is engraved on his tombstone that Ivy will touch for the first time today: “l’dor v’dor,” or “from generation to generation.” I spent most of his last months in a puddle of my own overwhelming grief. But whenever I dwell on any time that I wasted not enjoying him, I finally know that it’s really not the case, because he lives on through her.
Anna Brand is the Managing Editor for Visuals at CNN Digital. She’s based in Brooklyn, NY, with her husband, daughter, cat and dog and lives on iced Americanos and seltzer. You can find more stories about her dad on her website.
