In Awe of Time

Time moves in ways I cannot fully understand. Tomorrow will be nine months since my dad passed away. Nine months—the same amount of time it takes to carry new life into the world. Long enough to have gestated a child or two, yet it feels like both yesterday and forever ago since I last heard his voice.

This week is heavy with meaning. On September 15, it was eleven years since my grandmother died. Today, September 16, Akira turns five. Tomorrow, September 17, will be my dad’s nine-month death anniversary. These dates sit so close together, showing me how life and death always walk hand in hand.

I think back to 2019, when I first stepped into healthcare as a patient access representative. I had no idea that within a year, the world would shut down in a pandemic. No idea that those first steps would lead me here—to working as a Clinical Research Associate in the same system. In just a few years, I have lived so many different lives: friendships ended, an engagement that became singleness again, a bachelor’s degree completed in 2022, my father’s death in 2024, and the start of my MSW/MPA program that same year. And now, the unexpected opportunity of a teaching job in Fengjie lingers in the background of it all.

Time does not pause for grief or for joy. It does not wait for us to be ready. It keeps moving—through pandemics, through degrees, through heartbreaks, through milestones.

Life and death, beginnings and endings, joy and sorrow—all are intertwined. All measured by time. And as I sit with these anniversaries, I am simply in awe of how fast it passes.