Tag Archives: grief healing

Duetting: Memoir 15

Duetting: Memoir 15 Robin Botie of Ithaca, New York photoshops a poem written by her daughter who died, placing it over an image of silhouettes.

Marika’s classmates and teachers had been sending notes of support, and “Marika Kicks Leukemia” tee shirts circulated throughout Ithaca High. In a daze, but smiling, Marika listened to her benefit concert over my cellphone held to her ear. The guidance counselor called daily to see if she could attend the graduation, but no one knew for sure if Marika would be able to walk, sit up in a wheelchair, or even tolerate the trip back to Ithaca. At the last minute the Roc Docs said yes. In a stupor of disbelief, I drove her home.

There was plenty to worry about. Marika could pass out at any time. It was hot, and the red wig was heavy under her cap. She could barely walk, but insisted on walking. There were stairs. Her last name beginning with ‘W’, she would shake the same germ-riddled hands that shook all four hundred classmates’ hands before her. Concerned about her meager immune system, I presented her with a pair of purple latex gloves. She ignored me. She was uninterested in instructions on how to gracefully avoid handshakes and hugs. How would she hold up during the half hour wait in line the students had to endure before claiming their seats? She was determined to do the whole thing the way she’d always expected. So I left her off as close as I could to the stadium at Cornell University where the event was to take place, where there was already a traffic jam, long lines, and huge tangles of people and germs.

We were all there at Schoellkopf Hall. Laurie. Greg. Rachel. Marcus. Marika’s father and his wife. Our mother-daughter tribe. Teachers Marika hadn’t seen in weeks. People I hadn’t seen in years. I was hugged repeatedly as Laurie and I made our way to the spot high in the bleachers that Rachel had staked out for us. The band began to play and the class of 2008 filed in and filled the expanse of seats below us. Teary-eyed, I kept my gaze fixed on Marika during the speeches. Then, finally, the students rose from their seats.

Marika stood. Soon, she was walking. She was next. The stairs—suddenly I couldn’t see through the crowd—she’d somehow climbed the stairs when her name was called. There was a burst of applause. There was thunderous clapping, cheering. She smiled, embarrassed, up on the stage. I had to stand to see. People all around were standing. She stopped before each of the graduating officials to receive their blessings. The audience stomped and roared. Marika stood there, astonished, surveying the scene for what seemed like forever. I clapped hard as I could. I cried.

The bleachers shook wildly when she stepped down off the stage. The rumpus continued as she headed back to her seat and was ambushed in hugs. And as the din died down, I scanned the crowd. How astounding it was to be held in the hearts of so many. I’m her Mom, I smiled through tears. Right then I knew I’d always remember the sheer glory and magnificence of that moment. What I didn’t know was how later, and forever, the memory of Marika’s graduation would stir up an ocean of pride and tears. Like it was just the other day.

 

 

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Digital Afterlife

Digital Afterlife Robin Botie of Ithaca, New York, considers digital afterlife as she emails her dead daughter and photoshops her digital duplicate.Don’t tell me I’m the only one emailing a dead loved one, “still loving you and missing you lots.” Admitting I occasionally email my daughter, who’s been dead six years, is no longer an embarrassment. Because now people are texting their deceased loved ones – and getting text messages back from beyond the grave.

The possibility of digitally interacting with a loved one who died is not science fiction anymore. If your beloved chatted online, texted on a cellphone, posted on social media sites, emailed or blogged, she left behind a digital footprint. Billions of gigabytes of data can be collected from this. With a trillion gigabytes, digital afterlife technology can capture speech patterns, expressions, and personality, and then craft a digital version of an individual. And a computer system modeled on the human brain now allows this digital version of your loved one to process new information and keep up with current events, so her digital being can continue to evolve long after her physical being has passed on. Is this eternal life?

This could change a lot about how we view death, and how we grieve.

OMG, I used to tell my daughter she was spending too much time on her electronic devices. And now, if only she’d spent more time on them, she could be living on in my computer. Or in my phone. And then I’d be the one glued to these things. But would I really want to get texted from the Other Side, “Mom, get a life,” and “Way to go, mom. You just showed everyone on the internet how clueless you are”?

Anyway, most of the healing and comfort come from my own communications to my daughter. Writing to her, talking to her. Unloading my heart calms my grief. I don’t need a digital duplicate of my daughter. Her voice still echoes in my head. Almost daily. And even without digital afterlife technology, our relationship has evolved. After six years, instead of her bellowing “Mom, you’re a wimp,” I now hear Marika whispering, “You can do this, mom. You’ve got this.”

 

If you could get a text message from the great beyond, what would you want it to say? If you kept “hearing” from the one you’re missing, how would this change your grieving?

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An Old Lady’s Song of the Open Road

An Old Lady's Song of the Open Roa Robin Botie of Ithaca, New York, photoshops a cabbage in winter.“The roads are open. Let’s do dinner and the opera,” my neighbor announced.
“Well, MY weather app still says ALERT, Winter Storm Watch, and Weather Advisory in effect,” I said, immovable like an old cabbage in winter, lodged comfortably in its patch.

“The weather advisory is over,” she said, desperate to get out after two snow-days stuck in her apartment.
“We’ll never get out of the driveway. There’s a huge mountain of snow where it meets the road. And I don’t know when the guy’s gonna plow.” She and another neighbor then began shoveling the 2500-foot long driveway we share. I stayed inside wondering if we weren’t all just begging for heart attacks with all this restlessness and shoveling.

“So, will you go?” she asked, all red and steamy from working in the snow.
“But the roads, the travel alert. Nothing’s been plowed yet.” I went on and on.
“I have four-wheel-drive,” she said, smiling smugly.

We threw my snow shovel in the backseat. In case. And we held our breaths as the car clambered through deep snow that hid the driveway’s hills and holes. Inching out onto the road, I checked my seatbelt. And suddenly it was as if the car was flying towards town. We sailed the slushy deserted streets in search of an open restaurant. And in the almost empty theater, we giggled, “See, all the OLD people stayed home.”

For hours, I was transported back to the times in my 20s and 30s, when adventure overpowered any fears, and a storm watch was an invitation to take off and go who-knows-where. Like Walt Whitman’s poem: Afoot and light-hearted, I take to the open road, healthy, free, the world before me…. I was back in the good old days before I became a cabbage in winter.

Later, when we returned, the roads and shared driveway had been plowed. My neighbor parked the car and handed me the shovel from out of the back. Laughing like we’d gotten away with stealing something, like we’d conquered something bigger than ourselves, we said goodnight several times.

It was late. Dark. The small mountain of snow by the garage could wait ‘til morning. But the shovel was already in my hands. Digging it in deep, I lifted and tossed chunky piles of snow over my shoulder. High. Like in the good old days.

 

When’s the last time you ventured out in a storm? Or took to the open road? When’s the last time you felt lighthearted, healthy, and free?

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From Grief to Gratitude

Robin Botie of Ithaca, New York, photoshops friendship bracelets around a photo of her daughter who died of leukemia being hugged by friends.Saturday was my daughter’s sixth angelversary. Angelversary is the name bereaved parents often use to gently refer to the date of a child’s death. It marks the day a son or daughter became an angel. Or the day they took up a heavenly abode. I’m still on the fence about heaven and where one ends up after life. And Marika was no angel. But these wretched anniversaries wreak a range of emotions. What bereaved mothers and fathers really want, besides having their children back, is to know their child is loved and won’t be forgotten.

The first few angelversaries I was immobilized with fear and dread, wondering how I could survive the day. Then there were years when I obsessed about exactly how to commemorate such a time: to turn off the phone and stay in bed, or line up back-to-back meet-ups with friends? To curl up and cry? Or celebrate Marika’s life with balloons and butterflies?

“I’m declaring a personal holiday,” I told a bunch of other bereaved parents last week. “I’m going to party and drink and do all the things she liked to do. I’m gonna be really good to myself. Cake. Chocolate. Hiking with my daughter’s dog. I’m going shopping.”

I was going to write about all those things. I was looking forward to barging into the day full force, like my daughter would, feasting on the beautiful free time to do anything I wanted. And then, first thing on the day of Marika’s sixth angelversary, I felt a desperate urge to grab onto my grief again. I needed to drown in sorrow. Feel pain. Cry. Maybe so I could remember how much I loved, and how much that love costs me still.

There was a box of Marika’s photos. The ones from her last years. I knew they would fuel a major breakdown. What I didn’t know was, after the deluge of tears from seeing dozens of photos of Marika being held and hugged in the middle of friends, how grief could melt into gratitude. It warmed me as much as the cocoa, the chili, and the good cheer I found the rest of that day among my own friends.

All the beautiful, wonderful friends. Hugs to those who keep me going. And brimful thanks to everyone who filled Marika’s life with love. She was no angel. But she was loved.

 

How do friends keep you going? How do friends keep you grateful?

 

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Grief and Glory at the Opera

Grief and Glory at the OperaLate, past my bedtime, I am dancing with the dog in the driveway. With arms stretched out to hug the universe, I sing to reach the stars. My head is filled with a melody that clings, wrapping itself around every thought. And my heart bursts with love. For everyone and everything in the world. It’s growing greater than my little frame can contain. All this emotion and energy ricochets too wildly back and forth off the walls in my house, so I take myself outside where I can twirl it off into the still night air. This is what it looks like when I come home on Opera Night.

Opera is meant to move us, give us goosebumps. Some think opera is boring. Irrelevant. Silly even, as every human emotion is expressed in song. Imagine though: people get poisoned or stabbed, they crave power or revenge, they die or drown in despair, in desperate love, sometimes forbidden love. There is war, rage, jealousy, fear, hope, joy, … an explosion of passion, all conveyed through a wide range of the human voice. Howling, whimpering, roaring … trilling to tunes that tell a story that is timeless and universal. Always, there’s grief and glory to be found at the opera.

And opera is not just singing. It is a combination of music, drama, visual design and movement. It’s like the Ironman triathlon of the arts, only all the action is taking place at once. In costume, with stunning stage sets. It captivates and thrills us; it drains us. For performers and audience alike, opera is a workout.

Throughout my daughter’s cancer, come Opera Night, wherever we were, I took a break to attend the Metropolitan Opera’s Live in HD broadcasts offered several Saturday afternoons and Wednesday evenings at local movie theaters worldwide. I could sit through every tragedy known to man, and witness on the large screen all the churning I felt inside myself. Sometimes the story ended badly. I’d be in tears. But there was comfort in watching the sadness of the larger-than-life characters. Their grief was amplified by the intensity of the music. Magnificence. Even in the midst of catastrophe. Every pain I felt was validated, and became more bearable.

So meet me at the opera. We’ll hike the highest peaks and deepest pits of our emotions. We’ll witness the truth of what it is to be human in this world. And when we laugh or cry at the opera, we’ll know we’re not alone.

 

What does opera mean to you? What makes you feel like singing and dancing your heart out?

 

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Why Blog?

Robin Botie of Ithaca, New York, photographs a green fern in the forest at Lime Hollow Nature Center in Cortland, NY.“Why do you do this blogging thing?” a friend once asked me. After tearing up a half dozen different dirges I wrote this week, I came back to this question. Why blog? Why would anyone want to blog?

In June of 2012, a year after my daughter died, I was writing a memoir. I created a website in order to show potential literary agents I could gather and grow an audience. Each week I wrote my heart out. Soon the benefits of writing became clear and my reasons for blogging changed. Now, four years later, I have not missed a single Monday morning blog.

Blogging adds structure to my life. I pretend it is work. I force myself to get out and do stuff so I can have things to write about, and I block out time at the end of every week to type up my report. Then, on Monday mornings, when everyone else goes off to their jobs, I sit at the computer and publish “my work.”

I blog because I love to work. And I love the pride that comes from producing something.

I blog because my daughter blogged. It is a connection to her, one of the ways she continues to shape my life.

Blogging is a weekly evaluation, a review of my current emotional state. It’s an opportunity to remember what made me smile that week, what hardship or fears I overcame.

I blog to know I’m not alone. To reach out. To hopefully offer comfort to someone else. To hear from people and make new connections in a world where I was once, simply and happily, my children’s mom. Like so many others, I’ve had to reinvent myself. “I’m a blogger and photographer,” I say now, when asked what I do.

Mostly, I blog to remind myself, and others, that even when we’ve lost what we thought we could not live without, there is yet more joy and beauty and love to sustain us. “I’m looking for joy,” I tell my friends, as I search for the highlight of my week. Something fresh, and green. Something that stands out and slaps my heart awake. Blogging keeps me on the lookout for people, events, and moments that make me feel alive. If all I find is sadness, I write another lament. But when I discover something joyful, however small, I celebrate it. I love the heck out of it. And then I share it with you in a blog.

Thank you for being out there and listening. What do you do to keep moving forward?

 

 

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