{"id":457,"date":"2014-03-10T08:57:48","date_gmt":"2014-03-10T12:57:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/?p=457"},"modified":"2014-03-11T00:03:41","modified_gmt":"2014-03-11T04:03:41","slug":"love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/love\/","title":{"rendered":"What I Love"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Quilt<\/a>It was the day after my daughter\u2019s fourth deathday. Marika has a birthday and a deathday. They are each opportunities to celebrate the life that happened in between. The day was filled with friends who called, emailed, facebooked, and feasted on sushi. It was an uplifting time. But the day after, the sky caved in.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis isn\u2019t working for me. The Internet search didn\u2019t help. I need to be spoon-fed some information here. I\u2019m struggling,\u201d I said in my photography class where I\u2019m putting together a series of basic Photoshop lessons to share with hospital patients, people healing<\/a> from loss, and parents of teens living with cancer<\/a>. I was cranky and couldn\u2019t think. Everything was a headache.<\/p>\n

\u201cCan we talk in terms of solutions rather than problems?\u201d asked Kathy<\/a>, the photography instructor. It felt like I\u2019d been hit hard on my head. Right away I recognized my negativity, a trait I dislike and try to stifle.<\/p>\n

\u201cKeep coming back to what you love,\u201d she said a short while after. And I almost cried.<\/p>\n

So I \u2018shopped a picture of my sisters eating decadent desserts. I wrote up a handout sheet to teach a cool Photoshop technique. And then I did what I’ve only allowed myself to do on events like deathdays: I went back to the snapshots of my daughter.<\/p>\n

Marika\u2019s hazel eyes always fascinated me. They pouted, \u201cWhy can\u2019t we have sushi for dinner two nights in a row?\u201d They sneered, \u201cWay to go mom. You just exposed yourself all over the Internet.\u201d She smiled mischievously when I asked where my chocolates<\/a> went. She blasted, \u201cGo fall off a mountain\u201d and \u201cGo drown yourself,\u201d and rolled her eyes at almost everything I said. But something in me soared each time she came home.<\/p>\n

Kathy\u2019s words followed me home from class and stuck with me the next days as I assured myself I could \u201ccome back\u201d to my daughter any time I want. So now I invite all my friends who get stuck listening to a world that tells them to \u201cmove on\u201d and \u201cget over\u201d what dies, to \u201ckeep coming back to what you love.\u201d It\u2019s like snuggling in a warm quilt for a while. It can bring back sweet energy to propel you forward.<\/p>\n

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

It was the day after my daughter’s fourth deathday. Marika has a birthday and a deathday. They are each opportunities to celebrate the life that happened in between. The day was filled with friends who called, emailed, facebooked, and feasted on sushi. It was an uplifting time. But the day after, the sky caved in. […]<\/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":[1],"tags":[74,81,76,82,75,77,80,79],"class_list":["post-457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1","tag-anniversary-of-death","tag-getting-over-loss","tag-loss-as-part-of-life","tag-quilt-of-love","tag-rebuilding-life-after-loss","tag-remembering-lost-loved-ones","tag-what-i-love","tag-what-you-love"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457","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=457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}