In the Wake of Marika
A Memoir of Guarding LifeRobin Botie, designer and dreamer in Ithaca, New York, hangs onto her rebellious young adult daughter through the wilds of cancer crying, “Your cancer is my cancer,” as Marika blasts back, “Mom, get a life” – which is exactly what Botie must do on the other side of the journey.
The First Duet with my Dead Daughter
In the Wake of Marika
A Memoir of Guarding Life
by Robin Botie
The day after her daughter dies, Botie finds the poems and songs she wrote. Marika is not gone; she is upstairs in her bedroom in a dozen different journals waiting for her mother to meet the daughter she hardly knew. And daring her to duet.
It all starts with the burgundy snowflakes. They are all over Marika in May 2008 when Marika is diagnosed with leukemia. And they learn that since she just turned eighteen, Marika is the adult in charge of her medical decisions.
It’s a showdown: headstrong and stubborn Marika versus an advanced aggressive cancer. The doctors wage an intense chemotherapy attack. Right away Marika has seizures and respiratory failure. She almost dies two times during the first three weeks of cancer. And when she regains consciousness, she tells her doctors she is going to her high school graduation in two days.
Marika defies death as she fights for her personal independence. Cancer returns three more times before she gets the stem cell transplant needed to cure her. In between relapses she lives her life like it could end in an hour. When it does end, Botie, in the process of trying to redesign herself, finds new ways to carry her daughter into the next chapters of her life. She learns that pain, grief, and death are not things to get over or through; they are elements that shape who she is.
This is a story about surviving after great loss. It is a wild ride into every mother’s worst fears. It is a recovery story of how community held Botie in times of trouble and how she found ways to honor her daughter, hold her close, and grow in the pain of her death. It’s about losing a life and getting a life back.