Sasha in the water taxi

I was on a small speed boat and we were cruising along at a safe clip. The woman driver said she helped transfer Sasha. Before I could place her among Sasha's many movements through the hospital, she said why don't you have a look at her and she pointed to a capsule. I was shocked, Sasha had been at sea for three months! She saw my surprise and said Yes I drop them off at the end of my vacation so they can enjoy the sea air. I folded up the plastic visor that I could now see was sparkly with condensation that reminded me of the oxygen boxes in CCU and peeled back layers of soft blue blanket until, lo, there was a little child. And I was startled because she looked different. Salt was encrusted under her eyes and her face was skinny and she looked as she did as a baby, almost birdlike with big intense brown eyes. And she smiled a big smile when she saw me just as she did and she wriggled a hand free of her t-shirt and I got a glimpse of leads and monitors on her chest and I reached for her. Smiling she turned onto one side to go back to sleep, just as she used to. There were loud little children running by the door so I went to hush them and as I returned to the boat I woke up.

It was 4.30 am and I was awake and decided to go to Vesta lunch for a steak and eggs. I needed a cry and went downstairs and opened the blackberry and through tears saw an anonymous comment on grief that was a good coincidence at this precise moment and how wonderful to glimpse such a special water taxi.

Living with Sasha's spirit

We have been struggling with the direction of this blog. How to maintain a focus on Sasha over time rather than, as it felt, ourselves and our anguish and fears and hopes? Sasha and us are inextricably bonded and we are the light to her memory and the tribute to her potential and the connector to all those she never met. But as the months pass, we struggle to feel the transcendent beauty of Sasha from the memory fragmentation caused by the experience. There have been fewer and fewer pink entries: Mom dreams of Sasha all the time, Dad doesn't but the blog is part of his awake dreaming. To remember in the sense of reattaching is to reconnect body and spirit. If death does not make us spiritual geniuses as Stephen Jenkinson reminds us, it does sensitize us to the spirit. After life, there is spirit. In life there is spirit. Sasha's spirit, I conclude, is all around. We simply have to feel it. To reconnect and remember in a positive way is to build new moments with Sasha in our lives as we help others. This is one positive sense of the notion 'move on' that we struggle with; so not move away from pain or grief or anger but live with her in new moments in a new world, where we re-member a dismembered daughter on a new path in a wider world where this peach now plays. The future of this blog is to travel in a new world of connections and networks and initiatives and kid's smiles where Sasha's spirit will be happy.

And Sasha's spirit is on the go, reaching out to be lifted, calling out in excitement and discomfort, walking hand over hand in an intricate coordination of little feet shuffling skinny legs supporting a swollen belly, long delicate fingers always exploring and touching and shining yellow eyes radiating, supervising, learning and loving, oblivious to her remarkable physiology, huffing and puffing without fear of the gods swirling around the hospital.