The Remembering Space

Katie Joy Duke
2 min readOct 26, 2019

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Embracing One Another. Photo Credit Emma Milner

Today would be Poppy’s 4th birthday. October 26, 2015 was the gloomiest day of my life. The Universe opened a portal for my daughter’s spirit that day. She was born. She was dead. Back into the pool of the Unknown.

I relate to Poppy as my spirit guide for over 3 years now. She isn’t God, but she is proof that God exists and God is love and all things return to Love. She symbolizes the wheel of life and death. She was fully formed. She lived inside of me for 280 days. She breathed my amniotic fluid and absorbed nutrients from my blood. She and I were one, bonded in a way only mothers will understand.

Poppy is my Source. My flow. When I remember to invoke her spirit, I feel one with life around me.

As we drove to the hospital that early October morning, I didn’t know we weren’t coming home with our baby. We were ready. The nursery. The car seat. The onesies.

We had a birth plan. I didn’t want an epidural. I would accept narcotics to conserve energy. She would be placed directly on my chest. Eli would cut the umbilical cord. She would be alive. No wait, that part wasn’t in there. No one fathoms the alternative.

I don’t think about that day very often anymore. I told my story a lot in the beginning. It was so fresh and vivid and amplified by all the shock. But now, 4 years later, I step into this remembering space with a soft and gentle heart.

I feel the healing, even as I write. In four very long very short years, I have transformed. Eli proposed, we got married, Poppy died, my daughter Moxie was born, I had a near death experience in a car accident, and my father passed away. My spirit is stronger and more grounded than ever.

My experiences with death and near death bring me closer to my humanity. I have lived many lives before, and I will live many more. Believing this permits me to embrace the tragedy as part of the ride.

The pain comes and goes. It is perfectly natural and still I often wish I could be done with it. “Enough with the pain, Life, ok?”

[Hums a tune] Happy birthday to me. Happy birthday to me. Happy birthday Poppy’s mommy. Happy birthday to me.

Poppy, I feel you. I know you’re right here. Yet, you are a million trillion light years away.

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Katie Joy Duke

I write about love, grief, and healing to honor my daughters Poppy & Moxie. I am a mindset life coach, memoirist, & breast cancer survivor. www.katiejoyduke.com