{"id":1235,"date":"2016-06-13T06:59:37","date_gmt":"2016-06-13T10:59:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/?p=1235"},"modified":"2016-06-13T12:25:35","modified_gmt":"2016-06-13T16:25:35","slug":"free-fly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/free-fly\/","title":{"rendered":"Free to Fly"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Robin\u201cYou should write some final wishes. Just in case,\u201d I\u2019d told my daughter, like I was asking her to make a shopping list. It was back in November 2010, before her stem cell transplant. She was going to kick cancer<\/a>. So, except for handing me her healthcare proxy, \u201cHere. You can have this,\u201d we weren\u2019t discussing death or dying. In fact, I\u2019d often scolded her for living her life like it was an endless party, like it could never end.<\/p>\n

Marika\u2019s final wishes were found the day after they pulled the plug on her life support. I was the one who\u2019d had to sign the papers. That night, alone in her room, hugging her belongings, I found her poems. And now I have to wonder: did she have any idea what a gift this poem would be?<\/p>\n

FREE ME by Marika Joy Warden<\/p>\n

Free me.
\nLet me be.
\nSpread my wings for me, for all to see.
\nYou hold me, you\u2019re holding me
\nBack too tight, I can\u2019t break free.
\nThe cells, the cells of red and white,
\nThey\u2019ve given flight to my family,
\nBut not to me, because I\u2019m free.
\nFree, up above the world I know,
\nAway I\u2019ll go, don\u2019t hold me so,
\nDon\u2019t hold me back. I\u2019m stuck in black
\nAnd darkness here. The light\u2019s so near!
\nJust do not fear. I can go now.
\nSome way, somehow, I\u2019ll learn to fly
\nI\u2019ll reach the sky, float over you,
\nLook up, it\u2019s true. You\u2019ll see me there
\nWith regrown hair and regrown hope,
\nSurpassed the slope that I slid down,
\nDown to the ground, but now, no more.
\nFor now I soar above the sea,
\nNo catching me \u2018cause now I\u2019m free.
\nYou have freed me.<\/p>\n

Leaves of daylilies grow skyward like wings lifting in the wind. Hostas raise hundreds of leaf-hands in search of the sun. It\u2019s June, five years later, and I\u2019m whirling in a sea of fragrant honeysuckle. Singing as I pull weeds and water new plantings<\/a>, I watch every bird and butterfly, each duck and goose that flies over the pond. Fireflies. Damselflies. Moths. Which one will linger, circling over me? Which one will land and look my way?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“You should write some final wishes. Just in case,” I’d told my daughter, like I was asking her to make a shopping list. It was back in November 2010, before her stem cell transplant. She was going to kick cancer. So, except for handing me her healthcare proxy, “Here. You can have this,” we weren’t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[702],"tags":[866,857,370,865,871,869,868,870,867],"class_list":["post-1235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-702","tag-death-and-dying","tag-end-of-life","tag-final-wishes","tag-free-to-fly","tag-freed-from-pain","tag-gardening-grief","tag-gift-life-poem","tag-pulling-the-plug","tag-removing-life-support"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1235\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}