What I Notice Now That I Did Not Notice Before
There is a small list I have been keeping for myself. Things I notice now that I did not notice before.
It is not a list of profound things. Most of it is small. The kind of small that does not show up in a memoir or a recovery essay. The kind of small that lives in the corners of a regular day.
I wanted to write the list down, in case it is useful for another cancer mom who is also finding herself, on the other side of treatment, with a different attention than the one she used to have.
What I notice now
The way light moves across a room over the course of a morning
We spent a lot of mornings in clinic. The light in our living room would shift while we were gone. I did not see it. I see it now.
The way my son chews his food
He chews slowly. Carefully. The way he does most things. He gets that from his dad. I notice it at every meal now.
The texture of certain fabrics
His favorite blanket. My favorite sweater. The dog's belly. I do not know why I am noticing texture more. I think the chair did this to me.
The exact moment my daughter starts to look tired
She has a small shift in her face about thirty minutes before she will fall apart. I know it now. I did not know it before. I see it coming and I move her to a softer activity before the meltdown.
The sound of a coffee being poured
Specifically when my husband pours it in the morning. The slight clink of the spoon. The way the milk hits the cup. I do not know when this became a noticing.
Strangers' hands
I look at people's hands now. The way they hold a coffee. The way they pick up their phone. The way they pat their child on the back. I notice hands. I think the nurses did this to me.
Smells
Coffee. Detergent. The hospital. A specific kind of hand sanitizer. My son's hair after a bath. The grass in the morning. I am a person who notices smells now, in a way I was not three years ago.
The quiet
I notice when the house is quiet. The kind of quiet that means the kids are absorbed in something. The kind of quiet that means it is finally bedtime. The kind of quiet that means my husband fell asleep in the chair downstairs. I notice each kind.
How long a day is
Days felt long during treatment, in a bad way. Now they sometimes feel long in a good way. A whole Saturday with nothing on the calendar. A morning that includes pancakes and a backyard and a small walk. I do not rush days the way I used to.
The way my mother-in-law lays her hand on my arm when she is leaving
She has done this for years. I noticed it for the first time last spring. I cried in the kitchen after she left.
Why I think I am noticing more
I have a theory about this.
Cancer mom-ing required a kind of hyper-attention. I had to track everything. Symptoms. Counts. Schedules. Medications. Side effects. The exact way my son's face looked on a normal Tuesday so I could tell if something was off on a Wednesday. The way he slept. The way he ate. The way he played.
I was attending to my child at a level of detail that, in regular life, most parents do not have to do.
When active treatment ended, the hyper-attention did not entirely turn off. It softened. It redistributed. It started landing on other things. The light in the morning. The way my husband pours coffee. The texture of a sweater.
I think cancer mom-ing taught me to pay attention. The attention is still here. It is just paying attention to different things now.
What I want to do with it
I want to keep noticing. I want to write down what I notice. I want to point things out to my kids. I want to say to my husband, more often than I do, "hey, look at this."
I do not want the noticing to go away. The noticing is, I think, the thing I am most grateful to be bringing forward from those years.
A note for the cancer mom reading this
If you are in active treatment, the hyper-attention is exhausting. I know. I was you.
Please know that one day, when this stretch softens, the attention you have been pouring into your child's body will start to land on other things. Light. Texture. Quiet. The small movements of the people who love you.
The attention does not go away. It transfers. It becomes a quieter, more grateful version of itself.
Until then, hold on. We are with you.
Dina
Mom of Max | Founder, Maxwell’s Toy Shoppe
Childhood Cancer Advocate 💛
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