{"id":621,"date":"2014-09-22T08:27:25","date_gmt":"2014-09-22T12:27:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/?p=621"},"modified":"2014-09-23T09:16:18","modified_gmt":"2014-09-23T13:16:18","slug":"daughters-voice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/daughters-voice\/","title":{"rendered":"My Daughter’s Voice"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"My<\/a>\u201cI have a message for you from your daughter,\u201d I was told twice after my daughter died. \u201cShe wants you to know she\u2019s all right,\u201d was the gist of each message. But I was already engaged in conversation with her.<\/p>\n

A year after Marika died the messages from family and friends were mixed: get over it; take all the time you need to grieve; let her go; you will never get over this. Talking to mothers whose children died decades ago, I learned that losing a child is not something one gets over. Ever.<\/p>\n

\u201cStay with me,\u201d I begged Marika as I walked her dog and looked up at a full moon. Nighttime in the driveway was the time and place I felt closest to her. Sometimes there was no moon. Sometimes I reached out to her in the middle of the day. After a while she followed me on my hikes in nearby gorges and I heard her voice whenever I passed a sushi stand in my travels.<\/p>\n

I had talked to my daughter before she was even born. She would kick me and I\u2019d watch my middle bulge and change shape. When she was a baby she echoed my words. As a toddler she asked a lot of questions. She boldly talked back to me as a young child. It wasn\u2019t until she was a teenager trying to break free of me that our communications broke down. Then, when she was a young adult, during the almost-three years in the wilds of cancer, in and out of hospitals together, we hardly talked. But I\u2019m talking to her now.<\/p>\n

She kicks me. And almost daily I hear, \u201cYou can do this, mom,\u201d and \u201cMom, get a life,\u201d and – \u201cSushi?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“I have a message for you from your daughter,” I was told twice after my daughter died. “She wants you to know she’s all right,” was the gist of each message. But I was already engaged in conversation with her. A year after Marika died the messages from family and friends were mixed: get over […]<\/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":[255,258,262,257,256,261,259,260],"class_list":["post-621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1","tag-after-death-communications","tag-bereaved-mother","tag-ill-love-you-forever","tag-message-from-dead-child","tag-my-daughters-voice","tag-right-here-in-your-heart","tag-talking-to-the-dead","tag-when-my-daughter-died"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t