Ana at age 5, on her first day of kindergarten. Courtesy of Jacqueline DooleyWhen my daughter Ana was 11, she was identified with a uncommon most cancers referred to as inflammatory myofibroblastic tumor (IMT). 5 years later, on March 22, 2017, Ana died from her illness.In these first months after Ana died, grief manifested as an ache in my chest and an lack of ability to do rather more than sit in my yard and watch the birds at my feeders. I finished working for about six months, outsourcing my freelance advertising initiatives to subcontractors whereas I moved via life in a daze.As annually passes, my grief shifts and modifications. It by no means fades. It’s simply… completely different. For me, surviving grief requires adaptation. It’s taken me a very long time, however I’m lastly OK with not hanging on to each single reminiscence, ritual and image that jogs my memory of Ana.As I method the seventh anniversary of dropping Ana, I don’t want or wish to maintain retelling the story of her demise. I wish to keep in mind her life and the distinctive issues that made Ana, nicely… Ana. There’s one reminiscence, particularly, that’s nonetheless sharp and clear in my thoughts — Ana’s imaginary world. She referred to as it Arkomo.Ana beloved tiny issues. She collected them like treasure : Minuscule stuffed animals. Shells that match into the palm of her hand. The world’s smallest plastic frog.When she was a toddler, Ana would collect her assortment of toys into an enormous pile within the middle of the lounge and throw a significant tantrum if I attempted to wash it up. She would sit and play beside the pile till, inevitably, she acquired drained. Then she’d curl up on some stuffed animals and take a nap. She was like a bit dragon fiercely guarding her gold.Ana finally moved on from these piles of toys to extra structured worlds. She constructed cities out of picket blocks, Legos or cardboard. She positioned her tiniest toys inside them. She performed with them for hours, drawing her youthful sister, Emily, into these magical locations. Ana was all the time the boss. Her animals all the time had starring roles in each journey.Ana at age 8, throughout a day of apple choosing. Courtesy of Jacqueline DooleyFor a really temporary time frame, Ana’s worlds dominated my dwelling. They appeared on the eating room desk and the ground of the den. They appeared in Ana’s bed room and in Emily’s. They appeared on my espresso desk, taking on till I made the women pack it up and put it away. These preliminary worlds would inform what was to turn into Arkomo — Ana’s most beloved world.***Ana constructed Arkomo from clay, Legos, bits and items of Playmobil units and quite a lot of Polly Pocket dolls — the sort that had been about an inch tall. It was a world that unfolded on Ana’s dresser incrementally with timber, homes, roads created from bricks of purple and brown vinyl (secured from a neighborhood retailer that offered mannequin prepare provides).She made an indication that learn “Welcome to Arkomo” — a reputation she got here up with on her personal — and populated the little world with ridiculously small toys referred to as Squinkies. They had been rubber individuals and animals that stood about half an inch excessive.The muse of Arkomo was shaky. It was created from wooden blocks secured by blobs of clay with some baked polymer parts. The entire thing was wobbly and precarious.Each time I put Ana’s garments away, a half dozen Arkomoians would topple from the dresser like vinyl raindrops. I all the time diligently put them again, attempting to revive them to wherever they’d been after they fell. I’d discover Squinkies on Ana’s flooring for years after that dresser — and Ana — had been lengthy gone.Arkomo took up useful actual property in Ana’s cluttered bed room. I’d as soon as complained about this to a good friend who suggested me, with a raised eyebrow, that I ought to clear it up whereas Ana was at school. There was no means I may do this. Ana had spent hours constructing and increasing Arkomo. Destroying it could’ve damaged her coronary heart.In the best way of oldsters who don’t wish to create little sociopaths, I fearful. I believed that perhaps I used to be spoiling Ana and that she wouldn’t discover ways to clear up her messes if I didn’t crack down on the toys. I fearful that perhaps Ana was getting too outdated for imaginary worlds.Ana at 11, a couple of month after her liver transplant. Courtesy of Jacqueline DooleyAna finally reclaimed the house on prime of her dresser. She turned 10, then 11, and he or she wished a stereo and a few audio system. She turned obsessive about My Little Pony and Funko Pop vinyl toys. She started amassing gems, incense and candles. She wanted a spot to show these items. She eliminated Arkomo, dumping the contents of the little world right into a field for straightforward retrieval.***By the point Ana was identified with most cancers, Arkomo not often resurfaced. When she pulled out the field, it was to scavenge a plastic tree or a tiny home for a faculty mission. A few month in the past, as I used to be cleansing the den, I discovered that field. I knew what was in it. I opened it anyway.Arkomo was nonetheless there: the plastic animals, the vinyl roads, the Playmobil timber. The bits of clay that had held all of it collectively are actually crumbled and dry.I don’t keep in mind the final time Ana performed with these items. It was seemingly a decade in the past, at the least, in all probability longer. I’ve discovered, after seven years of grief, that final instances aren’t one thing that all the time announce themselves.Generally they’re quiet and subversive. For each final day of faculty, there are a dozen much less grandiose lasts: the final time she watched SpongeBob, the final time she had a sleepover and the final origami crane she ever folded. I don’t keep in mind the final time Ana performed with Arkomo.I don’t keep in mind the final time, earlier than this yr, that I’d opened the field that contained this stuff that Ana had beloved. I don’t keep in mind the final time I sat down on the ground and performed beside the kid whose face I haven’t seen in so many rattling years.I want I had taken an image of Arkomo when it was nonetheless on Ana’s dresser. I want I had paid extra consideration when she introduced her world to life. I want I had written all of it down.That’s what I’d say to you, in the event you requested me for parenting recommendation — My God. Write it down. Write all of it down.Ana at 14. “Her hair is popping white from chemotherapy,” the writer writes. Courtesy of Jacqueline DooleyOn March 22, Ana will likely be gone seven years. It’s a magical quantity — seven. A baby who’s 7 can invent complete worlds. In case you break a mirror, you get seven years of unhealthy luck. There are seven colours within the rainbow. Seven Chakras. Seven musical notes. Seven years is sort of precisely half the size of Ana’s life. She died at age 15, simply seven weeks shy of her sixteenth birthday. I don’t know what any of this implies or if it means something in any respect. Time is a assemble, particularly when your little one dies earlier than you. These expectations we now have of ourselves and our kids are meaningless.As our children develop up (or even when they don’t ), the small print we recall of their childhood — of the kids they had been that solely we acquired to see — fade. This loss is often softened by the promise of their lives and of their futures. Rising up is all the time traumatic. We lose some sort of particular magic as we become old. However not rising up — that’s much more traumatic. The dusty, damaged remnants of Ana’s imaginary world jogged my memory that the kid she was — the kid solely I actually knew — is gone. The girl she was purported to turn into can be gone. There aren’t any extra firsts or lasts for Ana. For the seventh anniversary of her demise, I wished to share one thing about Ana that only some of us nonetheless keep in mind. I wished to ask you into Arkomo, a spot dominated by the tiniest of keepsakes and the creativeness of a lady who’s deeply missed. Ana was right here. She was wonderful. She invented complete worlds. Now one thing non-public and great about her. Take it with you. Make your individual worlds. Bear in mind Ana while you behold tiny treasures. Jacqueline Dooley is a contract author and essayist in New York’s Mid-Hudson Valley. Her essays on grief and parenting have appeared in The Washington Put up, HuffPost, Fashionable Loss, Al Jazeera, Pulse, Longreads and extra. You could find a lot of her work on Medium, the place she repeatedly writes about grief, parenting and different issues. You possibly can attain her by way of her web site, https://www.jacquelinedooley.com/contact-me.Do you’ve a compelling private story you’d prefer to see printed on HuffPost? Discover out what we’re on the lookout for right here and ship us a pitch at pitch@huffpost.com.Associated…