“What a sweet dog.” Two women bend to pet Suki when they see her wagging her tail and pulling at the leash to come closer. Suki’s eyes light up and the strangers love that this little dog is so happy to see them. But as soon as she is close enough to be touched by their outreached hands Suki looks away from them and drags me off to investigate another group of people. She could go on endlessly sniffing out crowds like this.

            “I guess you’re not the one she’s looking for,” I say, embarrassed and trying to make light of it.

            Unlike Suki, I don’t need to search for Marika. For me she is so often nearby, just hidden in the deepest folds of the world around me. Folds and levels and layers that occasionally yield a tiny earring lost long ago, a familiar sound of her trying on jeans in the dressing room across from mine, or a memory of walking in a field of fireflies.

            When I go to pick blueberries there are children sitting in the shade of the bushes eating from their buckets. They are tired and hot and they beg, “Mom, when can we go?” A scent in the air beckons me to look more closely at the nearby daylilies. Marika made drawings of flowers with all the parts labeled. She picked daylilies and daisies for me once and cried when they wilted. The summer is filled with sweet reminders of our times together.

            Sometimes I hear her still. In my dreams or in moments of dilemma she tells me, “Get a life” and “Don’t worry” and “Get over it, mom.” So I push myself, I go to events I’d considered blowing off. I focus on the positive. I hug Suki. And even though some of the memories make me sad, I have faith that everything will be fine.

When I read aloud to my friends, the words take me away. I trail behind the sound of my own voice on a soft wind that carries me over oceans and mountains, into deep gorges and dark pine forests. All the sweet and savory, whispering and roaring, bland and textured words pour out of me while I pretend I’m a bird with a million songs. I want to lull my listeners to peace at times and spew angry fire at them at others. Occasionally I peek up from my pages to see eyes begging me to continue. I am tall and strong then. The healing powers, the power to move people, and the power to live on grow in me. I lose myself and find myself in what I write and then read. And I feel hope. It’s back. And hope implies future. So I look forward to the sharing, and love the book like it’s a daughter, and carry on.

My First Public Reading

Sunday, August 4 at 3pm
at BUFFALO STREET BOOKS
in the Dewitt Mall between Cayuga & Tioga Street, Ithaca (607) 273-8246

WORKS IN PROGRESS READINGS
I will be one of 8 writers reading new works, 8 minutes each.

Exciting and free event.
What part  should I read?
What shall I wear?
If you’re in Ithaca please come and listen and say hello afterwards.
Cheers!

I don’t know how many pints of blood my daughter received during her almost-three-year battle with leukemia. Marika had many transfusions to keep her life going. And she kept going for a good while with college, road trips, concerts, and music. She partied, sang, and stayed out late nights. She lived like the lights could go out at any time.

“But Mareek, you shouldn’t … you can’t … you … but … but …, ” I’d say and she’d just roll her eyes at me and say, “Mom. Get a life.”

Stuck in the hospital so much those years, often there was little I could do for her other than hold her hand or rub her feet. But one day in the cafeteria I saw a sign for a blood donation event. That’s when I first started giving blood. It was something I could do. If not directly for her, at least I could give back to the American Red Cross that was giving so much to my daughter.

“Look what I did,” I said to her proudly afterwards, showing off the “I GAVE BLOOD TODAY” sticker. She didn’t roll her eyes at me even though I was wearing my sticker in the middle of my chest like a five-year-old. She smiled. She’d given blood several times herself in high school, before she got sick.

Parked flat out on a table at a local blood drive, I wait and stare up at fluorescent lights. I think back to all the poking Marika had put up with. She hated shots and needles.

“Are you okay?” a technician asks.

“Yeah. I’m just squeamish around needles,” I say, hugging myself. I remember how Marika always grabbed my hand whenever her veins were surveyed and stuck.

“Are you okay?” the tech asks again after she nicks the side of a vein and another technician rummages around to get the right spot. I grit my teeth. I squeeze and release the tiny foam football they’ve given me and count to five in between, as instructed. I think to myself that Marika should be at the center of all the attention and fuss, not me. I’m the one who is supposed to stand by and hold her hand, rub her feet, ask if she’s okay. The other technician’s face is suddenly over mine. I try to smile through tears that well up in my eyes.

“Are you all right?” he asks.

“I’m okay,” I answer, flexing my toes, squeezing and releasing the football. One-two-three-four-five. One-two-three-four-five. One-two-three-four-five. “Are you getting enough blood?” He gives me a thumbs-up. I smile and wipe the tears that run down the sides of my face.

It’s always like this. Three or four times a year now I give blood to honor the memory of my beautiful feisty daughter. It shakes me apart every time. But sharing blood is part of my new life. It’s something I can do. It helps me and someone else in the world feel better and keep going.

What does this photo have to do with giving blood, or Marika, or healing from loss? Well, I wanted something cheerful. And a few weeks ago I found this very special photo of my father which was taken by one of my children when (s)he was very short. My father would be proud of me for giving blood today.

What makes you nervous but you go ahead and do anyway?

  “I’m sorry. I have this effect on people,” I say as my photography instructor’s head drops to the desk and she holds onto it like it’s cracking. It’s the last day of the class. I’ve asked for help with my final photo project which now fills my computer screen in a convoluted overworked mess. She is speechless so I continue.

            “I don’t know why I always have to make things more complicated.” She pulls herself together and resolves my problem in a couple of clicks on the computer. “Why can’t I just go easy on myself once in a while?” I whine.

Days later, for this week’s blog I photo-shop an intricate scene, triplicating a green heron on the pond, and importing and laboring lovingly over a two-layered background of flowering shrubs. And then I decide to include the almost-untouched original shot, which could have worked as well on its own. There’s a terrific compulsion to work until I can’t see straight and everyone else around me drops from exhaustion. Is what I do ever going to be good enough?

It may not be perfect this time. But I will allow myself to feel satisfied. It’s not quite nine o’clock and I’m going to hug the dog, lay low, think positive thoughts and paint my toenails.

How do you complicate your life?

“How’s the book? How far along are you with your book?” friends and relatives ask.

“I’m still working on it,” I say, embarrassed. It takes a long time to write a book. Most of the hours in each day, every day of the week, I write. Standing over the kitchen counter, sitting at the dining room table with the dog at my feet, on the computer with the dog on my lap, with a clipboard on my lap as I drive, in bed, in waiting areas of offices and on the deck by the pond as I watch a small green heron, I write my book. Two and a half years ago I hoped with all my heart that my daughter would live. Now I spend all my energy and wishes on my book.

“You should check out Literary Marketplace online,” say friends. “You need to get an agent.”

Swenson Book Development sends an email with this week’s post about various types of editors.

“How long have you been writing this book now – two years?” my mother asks.

It is a sweet time as I read the book over “once more” after the latest changes, and then “once more” again.

“It won’t be forever,” I say. “Besides, I don’t know what’s next in my life yet.”

But really, I’m afraid to bring my book to an agent or editor. It’s like going to the doctor or dentist. I’m scared something major will be found to be wrong. My manuscript might be eradicated or ripped to shreds. It could be painful.

So I nurse the book a little longer, memorize its features, and love it like it’s a daughter with cancer.

“How are you gonna keep this place going all by yourself?” my father had asked ten years ago, the last time he came to visit. He kept his own tiny yard on Long Island immaculately trimmed and cleared. It was his comfort and joy to sit outside in a pristine landscape with his dinner al fresco, a tall glass of beer, and a dog by his side. He would be horrified to see how I’ve neglected my house in Ithaca the past two years.

It is Fathers’ Day. So this morning I sweep all around outside the house, prune the bushes that have grown over the walkway to the front door, and arrange the wind-tossed plastic Adirondack chairs neatly on the deck. I replace the outdoor tablecloth and set up a new freestanding fire-pit. But my dad is not coming to visit. He’s been dead more than three years. I’m not expecting anyone today. There were times I was surrounded by fathers, grandfathers, in-laws, and friends’ fathers. But now there is no father-figure to call on the phone or cook supper for. I can think of no other way to commemorate Fathers’ Day than to clean up the porches, the flowerbeds, and all the outside areas the way my dad did.

            When it starts to rain I go inside to look for pictures of him. A cardboard box is crammed with unsorted photographs that have not been looked at in ten years. There are pictures of my babies, my growing children, long-gone pets, and my father. And there are photos of my ex-husband.

            I cannot remember talking to my children’s father since Marika’s memorial two years ago. Communication had always required hard work and patience for us. And after Marika died, there was no longer a need to try to connect.

             I’m sure he will not be home on this Fathers’ Day with one child gone and the other in Afghanistan. The small, enclosed porch looks the same as it did years ago when I used to drop Marika off on alternate weekends. No one is around so I leave the package on the mail-table with a note.

    “Happy Fathers’ Day. Being a mother is the best thing I ever did. Thank you for being Greg and Marika’s father. Here are some of the old family photos you never got. I have hundreds. Let me know if you’d like some more. Cheers! Robin”

            I tiptoe back to the car and head for home, singing.