{"id":2819,"date":"2020-11-23T07:23:12","date_gmt":"2020-11-23T12:23:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/?p=2819"},"modified":"2020-11-23T09:34:40","modified_gmt":"2020-11-23T14:34:40","slug":"duetting-memoir-43","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/duetting-memoir-43\/","title":{"rendered":"Duetting: Memoir 43"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Duetting:<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a donor for you,\u201d the Roc Docs announced at our meeting, like they were giving Marika a birthday gift. \u201cHe is twenty-nine years old.\u201d Age and gender was all the information the transplant team could share about our donor.<\/span>
\n\u201cThe transplant preparations take two weeks, and the donor is available in mid-November.\u201d Because of her history of extreme reactions to treatments, Marika would have to stay in the hospital during the rigorous preparations. \u201cSo you\u2019ll be admitted at the end of next week,\u201d they said. Startled by the short notice, I must have gulped. Suddenly seven sets of eyes turned to me. Then a small voice popped up, not my own.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t,\u201d Marika said, and the focus honed in on her. \u201cMy concert. I have to do my concert.\u201d There was a stunned silence in the small, overstuffed room.<\/span>
\n\u201cYour concert? But\u2014um, when is your concert?\u201d one of the team finally asked.<\/span>
\n\u201cIt\u2019s either the 26th or 27th of November. We\u2019re still working out the details.\u201d<\/span>
\n\u201cUh, we can see if the donor can wait,\u201d one of the team suggested uncertainly. Leftover smiles were frozen on the faces of the doctor, the social workers, and the nurses. They eyed each other in disbelief. Then they looked at me like I should do something. I heard myself swallow. No one said to us, \u201cWe\u2019re worried about losing our small window of opportunity\u201d or \u201cWe might lose our donor.\u201d If this was a bad idea, it wasn\u2019t being made clear. They simply nodded and said they would ask the donor if he could be available at another time. So everything was put on hold. My stomach was grinding bricks.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAre you out of your mind?\u201d Bewildered when I told her, Laurie yelled at me over the landline back home. \u201cRemission doesn\u2019t wait around for you to check everything off your to-do list.\u201d She said nothing to Marika, didn\u2019t yell at her. But a day later, she called back to ask me, \u201cSo, what\u2019s the new game plan?\u201d<\/span>
\n\u201cThe concert is on Friday, November 26th<\/sup>. We get admitted on Monday the 29th<\/sup>, and the transplant is on Monday, December 6th. Wanna come out for Thanksgiving?\u201d<\/span>
\n\u201cNo, but I wouldn\u2019t miss that concert for the world,\u201d she promised.<\/span><\/p>\n

Thanksgiving in Ithaca is a chaotic coming and going of thousands. Evacuating students, mostly. But also friends and neighbors. The people you count on to participate in putting on a concert, or to show up. All the movement over the course of a few days makes planning an event during this time period an exercise in patience, creativity, and faith. Marika and Russ scrambled about to get a back-up singer and other musicians from people who had not yet heard their music. By the day after Thanksgiving, the night of the concert, The Nines in Collegetown was packed. I knew almost everyone there, and their mothers. Saving a seat for Laurie, I nursed a beer at a table with friends as we ate pizzas and tried to hear ourselves talk over the clamor of The Nines, known for its crowds, Blue Monday jams, and deep-dish pizzas. Our excitement and anticipation were at a peak when simultaneously, the band appeared and Laurie arrived. My eyes immediately zoned into an examination of Marika. Cute dress. When did she get that? She\u2019s wearing the boots I gave her. She looks happy. She looks tired, like she just woke up.<\/span><\/p>\n

Pleased with the crowd, Marika started singing \u201cParty Jam,\u201d a short song she and Russ wrote. Her large earrings dangled wildly as she moved to the music. In the back, Russ beat away at his drums. I was mesmerized watching my daughter doing what she dreamed about. I ordered another beer.<\/span>
\n\u201cHello everyone. Welcome to the Nines,\u201d Marika said cheerily, and went right into \u201cSoldier,\u201d a song she had written for her brother who was there in the crowd, recently honorably discharged from the army. She grimaced at her back-up singer who, unfamiliar with the tune, sang off key. The singer wore an old ridged washboard tied around her neck, which she struck with two drumsticks. I glanced across the room at her mother who smiled proudly at her healthy, spirited daughter.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t forget to tip those bartenders,\u201d Marika ordered at the end of the song. \u201cI wanna see more of you dancin\u2019,\u201d she yelled. The crowd cheered. The music got louder, and she danced. Then we all danced. We bumped into each other and laughed, waving our arms. It didn\u2019t matter that we could hardly hear the songs over the percussion. This was what we\u2019d waited for, what our lives had been put on hold for. The crowd at the Nines was crazy. The music boomed and Marika was in command. I wanted to freeze-frame the moment. She sang \u201cNever After\u201d and trailed off, \u201cI am not going anywhere, I am not going anywhere, I am not going anywhere.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Finally, with a victorious smile, finger pointing and fist punching the air, Marika shouted a song by Cake, \u201cI want a girl with a short skirt and a lo-o-ong jacket.\u201d A raucous finale. Just in case anyone was thinking this concert was to be her swan song. Sometimes I wonder if Marika knew it would be her last performance.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

It was ending. Please don\u2019t let it end, don\u2019t let it be over yet, I pleaded in my head, sending a grateful prayer to whatever kind spirit might be watching my world. <\/span>Cheers to Russ and all the musicians, to all the servers at The Nines, to everyone in the crowd. I shot blessings to the doctors who waited and the donor who waited. <\/span><\/p>\n

Laurie and I walked back to the car, our Frye boots scuffing the sidewalks of late-night Collegetown. My ears still rang. In the dark streets, the dazzling streetlights were kaleidoscoped by my tears.<\/span><\/p>\n

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“We have a donor for you,” the Roc Docs announced at our meeting, like they were giving Marika a birthday gift. “He is twenty-nine years old.” Age and gender was all the information the transplant team could share about our donor. “The transplant preparations take two weeks, and the donor is available in mid-November.” Because […]<\/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":[114,2137,2173,64,299,995,2049,991,2090],"class_list":["post-2819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1998","tag-bucket-list","tag-daughter-with-cancer","tag-duetting-memoir-43","tag-healing-from-loss","tag-life-is-short","tag-living-life-to-the-fullest","tag-mother-daughter-relations","tag-swan-song","tag-young-cancer-patient"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2819","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=2819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2819\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}