Why I Know my Daughter Lives

I talk to Corrie everyday.

Whether through a dream, memory, or out loud; I speak with my daughter. A relationship with a child isn’t like other relationships that may stop cold turkey.

I still have two children.

It’s just one moved out before the other. She grew her wings. She graduated to heaven, and we had a different meaning of cap and gown.

But I still know my daughter.

She’d comment on what is going on in the world, and as strong as her reading was before she grew her wings, she’d be ready for longer books in first grade. She’d be in dance or gymnastics.

But I know my daughter lives.

I know my daughter lives still because I feel a joy in her bedroom when I work. I experience happiness when I build a LEGO set with her brother in her room. In the places and people she still loves, my daughter lives.

It’s not that she missed the opportunity of Kindergarten, first grade, or every grade after. My now six-and-a-half-year-old possesses a knowledge I lack.

When summer started, I began rebuilding my relationship with Corrie’s preteen pup, Rosie. I fully believe animals have souls just like us. Rosie needed me, and I needed her.

Because one year ago today I cried until tears would no longer come. I wanted the year to end. I wanted death to stop intruding on my life. One year ago, Rosie’s brother, Jack and my dog, was put to sleep after we explored all the options to keep him alive. On July 25, 2020, he was hit by a car, and left for dead.

I sobbed on July 27, 2020 feeling I’d failed to protect my dog as he always protected me. Just a pup, Jack would put himself between anyone else and me. I loved every bit of the four months we had him.

I felt—and this is a nightmare, burden, and guilt I will bear until I die—that I failed my baby girl. No one, neither my husband nor therapist, can convince me any differently. I am her parent, and I should’ve gotten her to the doctor sooner.

But fourteen months to the day since Corrie graduated to heaven and one year since Jack joined her, the burden part is one with which I am learning to live.

Well aware the one year anniversary of Jack and fourteen month anniversary of Corrie was approaching as June ended, I was tired. I was tired of “angel anniversaries,” or memories of death.

I wanted something that marked signs of life.

I decided, even though our project house isn’t ready, to host a surprise 75th birthday to honor my father. (It’s okay to share here because Dad only goes online to news media, and his computer for Solitaire. He still uses a 1995 style email.).

I remember my father standing with my son at Corrie’s grave marker in November 2020, and he said, “We’ve both lost a sister.” I also lost my dear aunt, and Dad lost his only sibling.

When I’d heard the news my aunt had died, an image appeared in my mind of Corrie between the clouds at the top of a golden staircase waiting for my aunt. In that moment, I missed and envied my aunt because her soul was the first to see my daughter.

Whether you believe or not, I know my daughter lives. She’d want to have a party for her Papa. She’d want us to live.

When I learned I was pregnant in February and just before I lost the pregnancy, another vision of Corrie entered my mind of her dancing. She wore a dress with an off white top, and denim skirt. She twirled throwing glitter everywhere with the kind of laughter knowing that she would not have to clean it up.

I miscarried early, but I did not lose the vision of Corrie.

Because I know my daughter still lives, she stirs life within my soul to continue. Her life and loss helped me endure the pregnancy loss.

At the beginning of July, I did one more thing some others thought was crazy. I rescued a one year and one month old preteen pup named Sugar. I rescued Sugar to become a friend for Rosie, and to mark life rather than death as July 27th approached.

The opportunity gave us the chance to rescue a pup abandoned, and her ribs showed. We renamed her Sugar Belle and call her Belle. She gets along well with Rosie, and she is a terrier/ German Shepard mix.

Because I know Corrie still lives, I had a dream in which Corrie played on the second story of a beautiful house with white rails. She wore white pajamas with black spots in the style of a Dalmatian. Belle ran in front of her, and Corrie laughed a deep laugh that didn’t stop.

My daughter’s voice as a strong, expressive, and independent girl comes through in my writing more than the sadness part of grief. The Deronda Review published my now one year old signature Corrie poem, Six,” also a piece in her When We Danced in the Rain collection.

It remains my pinned Tweet on Twitter.

I sat down in June and banged out the first two chapters of a memoir about my family in 2020, and Corrie was the star of the first chapter. The work in progress has been accepted as part of an online writer’s workshop.

I know Corrie still lives.