![\"Duetting:](\"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/28SolidPost.jpg\" "\\"Duetting:")
<\/a><\/span><\/p>\nThere\u2019s something I should have mentioned long ago: I have no religion. I mean, I don\u2019t know if I believe in God, or in scriptures, or heaven, or in any of the various teams directing members about how to worship or who to trust. Religion, like politics, is one more thing that divides people. I don\u2019t subscribe to any sides even though it means I\u2019m often treading on shaky ground.<\/span><\/p>\n I like to imagine there\u2019s some invisible thing out there, some entity that\u2019s always creating, giving and taking. Watching over us all. I feel closest to this thing when I\u2019m by an ocean or hiking in the mountains. Regularly, looking up at the stars or out across valleys into the hills, I send out grateful thanks to it. When I feel lost, this something reminds me I\u2019m not alone. It counsels me to treat others the way I\u2019d want to be treated, and it assures me I will never understand the ways the world works. Occasionally I beg for help or protection. And then it fades as it bids me to do my best and be strong.<\/span><\/p>\n In times of crisis or loss, I\u2019ve always envied those who have faith in someone or something beyond this world. Life would be so much easier if I was chummy with God or had some indisputable doctrine to live by.<\/span><\/p>\n Back on the last day of June 2009, Marika\u2019s burgundy snowflakes were all over her again. Her job as lifeguard and boating counselor at Stewart Park Day Camp was to begin the next day. It was supposed to be the summer to make up for the loss of the previous summer.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m fine,\u201d she said, dully, when I caught up with her at Strong Memorial. She\u2019d already been put on intravenous arsenic, the standard second line treatment for her type of leukemia. \u201cI\u2019m bored,\u201d she said, meaning she felt trapped and knew her summer plans were now shot. I rubbed her feet and made mental notes of what I would fetch from Wegmans.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cHave you heard anything from Jake lately?\u201d I asked, suddenly needing to know more about the other almost-adult child with leukemia. Whenever we had a setback I\u2019d check the status of the other players, as if we were in some sort of race to beat cancer.<\/span> \u201cShe didn\u2019t eat the Cheesecake Factory takeout,\u201d I whined to Laurie.<\/span> A portable dialysis machine was wheeled in. It looked like a cross between an ancient refrigerator and a big old-fashioned tape recorder standing on its side. I stared at it skeptically. It hummed and churned. A wheel spun around as Marika\u2019s blood went in and came back out. I watched the colors of the input and output to discern any differences, and asked questions of the technicians who monitored the process constantly. There was no one else to talk to. I was miserable. During dialysis, for some reason I was not permitted to rub Marika\u2019s feet. Desperate for connection, by the end of the second week in the ICU, I left my Sleeping Beauty for a weekend at home when her father came to take over. Then, in Ithaca, I couldn\u2019t face anyone. People said, \u201cHow\u2019s your daughter doing? I\u2019m praying for her,\u201d and I didn\u2019t know how to answer. If they were kind or tried to hug me, I broke down crying.<\/span><\/p>\n A cousin called to tell me a group of nuns in New Jersey were praying for Marika. Another cousin brought Marika\u2019s name up in a service at his temple in Tucson. \u201cWe\u2019ll keep her in our prayers,\u201d various friends promised. I thanked them, \u201cWe need all the help we can get.\u201d Visions flooded my head: Julie Andrews in The<\/em> Sound of Music<\/em>, cloistered away in an abbey of somber nuns, singing and praying in heavenly harmony. Prayers, churches, synagogues, mosques, and monasteries were all foreign to me. But if more people were uttering Marika\u2019s name, and wishing us well, it couldn\u2019t hurt.<\/span><\/p>\n Still, for me, then, the only sure solid thing in this world was my daughter. I rubbed her feet and wondered, would those nuns really pray for a girl whose mother practiced no religion?<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There’s something I should have mentioned long ago: I have no religion. I mean, I don’t know if I believe in God, or in scriptures, or heaven, or in any of the various teams directing members about how to worship or who to trust. Religion, like politics, is one more thing that divides people. […]<\/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":[1998],"tags":[2030,438,2118,2110,2049,2112,2111],"class_list":["post-2722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1998","tag-a-mothers-grief","tag-coping-with-loss","tag-duetting-memoir-28","tag-i-have-no-religion","tag-mother-daughter-relations","tag-praying-for-healing","tag-solid-ground"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2722","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=2722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2722\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n\u201cHe hasn\u2019t returned my messages,\u201d she said, and turned away. We settled into our old established patterns for hospital confinement. But \u201cfine\u201d and \u201cbored\u201d didn\u2019t last long.<\/span><\/p>\n
\n\u201cRobin, she\u2019s depressed and in pain. You don\u2019t eat when everything between your hair and your toenails hurts.\u201d<\/span>
\n\u201cAnd now they stopped her chemo. What does that mean? Are they giving up?\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>
\n\u201cThat\u2019s just temporary, until they make sure she doesn\u2019t have an infection or pneumonia again,\u201d she assured me. But two days later, Marika was short of breath, and the Roc Docs put her in the ICU to avoid respiratory failure, her signature crash landing. Then she did crash and was put on the ventilator once more. And as she lay there unconscious, the cascade of complications compounded. Low blood pressure. Liver malfunction. Kidney failure. Her heart developed an electrical abnormality leaving her vulnerable to lethal arrhythmias. Inefficient heart patterns. My own heart smashed into my stomach. I flailed about wildly to grasp something stable, anything that might hold me or help me find solid ground. I rubbed Marika\u2019s feet fiercely.<\/span><\/p>\n