{"id":1358,"date":"2016-10-31T07:02:33","date_gmt":"2016-10-31T11:02:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/?p=1358"},"modified":"2016-10-31T08:13:14","modified_gmt":"2016-10-31T12:13:14","slug":"letter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/letter\/","title":{"rendered":"Thank You Letter"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"FallDear Wag\u2019in Tail Dog Grooming in Auburn, NY,<\/p>\n

Thank you so much for your gift to Ronald McDonald House in memory of my daughter Marika Warden. I don\u2019t believe we\u2019ve met. I\u2019m not even sure Marika knew you. But I\u2019m very grateful for your donation. Unless you are another bereaved mother you probably wouldn\u2019t understand how much it means to know that the life of your child mattered, or could make a difference somewhere. It means the world to me that five years after her death, Marika could inspire kindness and generosity.<\/p>\n

And I\u2019m so glad you chose to give to Ronald McDonald House. Because in the sad parting from the city where I last \u201cleft\u201d my daughter, and in all this time since she died, I never really thanked the warm people at Ronald McDonald House and the Ronald McDonald House-Within-the-Hospital <\/a>who welcomed the distraught mother standing at their doorsteps dazed and red-eyed, early on in her journey through the wilds of cancer, sobbing, \u201cIs this for real? You mean I can sleep here and you\u2019ll wake me if the hospital calls?\u201d<\/p>\n

Imagine you\u2019ve traveled far from your home to seek treatment for your sick child. You know no one in this city. You sleep in the hospital\u2019s uncomfortable reclining chairs, not wanting to leave your precious one alone. You eat from your child\u2019s almost-untouched meal trays. You\u2019re told not to use The Patient\u2019s Bathroom, so you dash down the hall to the ladies room when you have to, and hug the sympathetic nurse who shows you the shower in a nearby slop closet. Your kid reacts to chemo so horrifically you don\u2019t dare leave her bedside until things stabilize, and when they do you suddenly realize how tired and disheveled you\u2019ve become. You don\u2019t know how to begin to resuscitate yourself. And then, one day you\u2019re offered a very affordable room close by.<\/p>\n

First it was a room right in the hospital, a few floors down from the oncology unit. Later it was in a house a couple of blocks away. A room with a real bed and my own bathroom. Washers and driers nearby. Flowers. Meals lovingly prepared and left for whatever hour of the night I would tear myself away from my daughter. There were other mothers to talk to. Families. People like me, living in a strange city with invisible thick rubber bands tethering them to their critically ill children in the hospital, gratefully pulling themselves back and forth from their home-away-from-home, to regroup. Ronald McDonald Charities<\/a>. You picked a good place to help out.<\/p>\n

So thank you, Wag\u2019in Tail. For your gift, for reviving my memories, for letting Marika\u2019s story move you, and for allowing her life to still count for something. Cheers!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

PS: Wag\u2019in, The note Ronald McDonald House sent to inform me of your donation was what gave me the most joy this week. I don\u2019t know your real name. But I know you are no longer a stranger.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear Wag’in Tail Dog Grooming in Auburn, NY, Thank you so much for your gift to Ronald McDonald House in memory of my daughter Marika Warden. I don’t believe we’ve met. I’m not even sure Marika knew you. But I’m very grateful for your donation. Unless you are another bereaved mother you probably wouldn’t understand […]<\/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":[258,1006,1008,126,1005,1003,8,1007,1004],"class_list":["post-1358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-702","tag-bereaved-mother","tag-donation-in-memory-of","tag-gift-of-love","tag-in-memory-of-a-daughter","tag-inspire-kindness","tag-marika-warden","tag-ronald-mcdonald-house","tag-sick-child","tag-thank-you-letter"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1358","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=1358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1358\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}