{"id":73,"date":"2013-05-13T06:13:28","date_gmt":"2013-05-13T06:13:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/?p=73"},"modified":"2014-01-22T11:07:40","modified_gmt":"2014-01-22T11:07:40","slug":"trails-to-surviving-grief-on-mothers-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/trails-to-surviving-grief-on-mothers-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Trails to Surviving Grief on Mothers Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"MothersDay\"<\/a>\u201cI wanted to know Marika better,\u201d says my friend Lynn after she reads my manuscript. \u201cYou should show the reader more \u2026 beyond the natural love a mother feels for a child.\u201d For days I scour my memory for endearing mother-daughter moments to add to the book. They don\u2019t materialize. So I abandon that project to photo-shop a picture of my mother in her twenties and consider what I could write about Mothers\u2019 Day for my next blog post.<\/p>\n

Sunday I wake to the wild scampering of my cat. It sounds like he\u2019s found a mouse. Something I will have to get up to deal with. But not yet, it\u2019s too early. As my dog scrubs my face with morning kisses in an effort to coax me out of bed, I remember that it is Mothers\u2019 Day today. Now that my son is in Afghanistan and Marika is gone this is one of my dreaded holidays. I wonder if Greg will call. Not likely. It\u2019s too much for me to think about. I bury myself under the comforter.<\/p>\n

When I finally get up I find a trail of Q-Tips leading to the bathroom and all over the house. The cat has been busy; no mouse, just Q-Tips. Suddenly I am transported back to a Mothers\u2019 Day in 2008, days before Marika was diagnosed with leukemia. I had come home to find a trail of Hersheys chocolate kisses dotting the floor in a roundabout route from the front door to the dining room table.<\/p>\n

\u201cMom, you hafta follow the chocolate and read the clues to find your present,\u201d Marika had said. I traced the chocolates to an elegant dinner she\u2019d made of Caesar salad and pasta generously laced with red sauce, shrimp and scallops. She\u2019d moved her boom-box downstairs for the occasion. There were flowers on the table, a tablecloth and candles, and a chocolate cake. It was the first time she had ever cooked a meal for me.<\/p>\n

The picture of her proud face that evening warms me now and I write a note to myself, \u201cAdd Marika-memory to book.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cStop tormenting the dog,\u201d I yell to the cat that swats at Suki each time he prances by to check my progress towards the refrigerator.<\/p>\n

\u201cSuki, don\u2019t tease him,\u201d I say to the dog. \u201cYou\u2019re just encouraging him.\u201d For a moment it\u2019s like having my young children home again.<\/p>\n

Suki tosses and then pounces on a last stray Q-tip by the dining room table that has become my desk over the past months. A large note sits on top of the table. \u201cCALL MOM.\u201d The last two Mothers\u2019 Days I was so lost in grief and looking for life after loss that I almost forgot to phone my own mother.<\/p>\n

Later, in the middle of the Sunday Morning Hike at Hammond Hill, my son calls me from Afghanistan. That\u2019s when I know I\u2019ve found this week\u2019s blog story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“I wanted to know Marika better,” says my friend Lynn after she reads my manuscript. “You should show the reader more … beyond the natural love a mother feels for a child.” For days I scour my memory for endearing mother-daughter moments to add to the book. They don’t materialize. So I abandon that project […]<\/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":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-25"],"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