Don't let grief mess with your sense of time

In 2016, a shit-storm of cancer crept in to my festively-fall-attired home, grabbed by favorite time of year by the throat, and throttled it.

My dad called a few days before Christmas as I stood in line at Vons with a shopping cart filled with food for ten.

I could hear that my mom was driving, and they were together on speaker phone.

“Are you home?” she asked.

“No. I’m at the store. Why?”

Already I had that gut squeezed too tight feeling.

“We will call you when you get home.”

“No. Why? What’s wrong.”

“Tiny dots,” my dad said through the speaker. “There’s something in my belly and tiny dots. Tiny dots in my head.”

I leaned over the conveyer belt, tears pouring down my face, and mouthed “I can’t” to the checker. I abandoned my cart and sat down against the grocery store wall among the charcoal, matches, and greeting cards with well-wishes. We’d get many in the coming days. Only one or two contained the right “fuck cancer” tone.

The mass in our dad’s liver was as big as a football. 24-hours later, my mom, sister, and I stood next to his gurney in the pre-op hallway as a brain surgeon Sharpied our dad’s shaved skull to mark the correct side to cut open.

Dad was released on Christmas Eve. He died on a Sunday in morning in November, not quite two years later.

Today marks seven years since his passing.

For at least a year, I hated 10:35 a.m. every Sunday. I dreaded early October.  I perked up at Halloween, but those same tides brought waves that crashed me as they rolled into November. I fixated on dates and times.

This date was a scan day. This month he was on steroids and strong enough to swim. This was the day he fell. This was the day I threw up on a conference call. This was the moment I lost my grip on time.

It wasn’t always like this.

This time of year—the end of October and the beginning of November—used to be my absolute favorite.

It’s when the tides deepen. Its highs are higher, and the lows dip out along the pier pylons, exposing sea stars and mussels. There’s a blue to the horizon, magical after sunset, and the sky is clear from mist and sea fog as we welcome a new moon. And the stars! In Southern California, you can finally see the stars off our coast, especially Venus, as it pops out first to claim our wishes.

Each Veteran's Day meant a long weekend, and a flight North to the Wren Ranch to pet the goats, snuggle with my mom, and drive the gator around the pasture with our dad. He showed K how to kick the tires.

"Safety first," they'd say in unison with each kick.

For years, a parking lot across the street from Bank of America was transformed into our neighborhood pumpkin patch and Christmas-tree lot. The owners tied a full thermos of hot cider tied to a pole with those tiny white Styrofoam cups, and played The Eagles and Santana instead of holiday tunes. Every Halloween picture of Baby K in costume—from lobster to lawn mower—was staged here between bales of hay and masked ghouls.

I loved Friendsgiving, and the early years when we had nothing but each other, wine by the 2-liter, Miller Light, backyard football, and 27 friends squished into the living room for a photo. Those holidays had a festive vibe, with evenings that melted into jam sessions and charades.

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It wasn’t just Dad’s illness or his passing that messed with my sense of time. I marked anniversaries of all kinds. The passing of my friends’ parents. Days when my worst fears unfolded on the front porch. All the bad things had a place on the calendar.

I understand now that trauma can distort time perception, making it feel too fast, too slow, or like the past is repeating in the present. But this behavior—almost a fixation on moments in time—was new to me.

I read a post-COVID study[1] that explained that many who have experienced trauma report a “foreshortened sense of the future (Terr, 1983). These changes…may affect people’s time perception (see Holman & Silver, 1998) by limiting the degree to which they are able to move past a traumatic experience to envision a future for themselves.”

Getting stuck in our past keeps us from living in the present. And for me, that stickiness has not only robbed me of my present, but it also stalled out my ability to plan a better, happier version of those anniversaries in the future.

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I’m changing, though.

This November 4th, I walked the tide pools. I took Dad out to watch the surfers. And then I went to improv class for two hours and giggled with my friends.

I tried to stay present. Recognized when I got stuck. There's acknowledgement and acceptance.

It's not a giant shift. It wasn't perfect. But it's a start. Tomorrow's a new day.

Maybe I'll mark that on the effing calendar.

Footnote:

[1] Holman EA, Jones NM, Garfin DR, Silver RC. Distortions in time perception during collective trauma: Insights from a national longitudinal study during the COVID-19 pandemic. Psychol Trauma. 2023 Jul;15(5):800-807. doi: 10.1037/tra0001326. Epub 2022 Aug 4. PMID: 35925689; PMCID: PMC9898469.