We first “met” Isabella Dove around the time we started our blog in February 2009. She lived in Thailand with her young daughter, Naa’ila. Back then, she was teaching yoga and she and Naa’ila moved around southeast Asia as new yoga gigs surfaced.
I was always impressed by their relationship – mom and daughter, a nomadic duo.
But in October 2014, Isabella lost her eleven-year-old daughter while they were living in West Africa. I still remember the night I came across Isabella’s post about Naa’ila’s death. I cried.
In 2015, Isabella sent us a string of synchronicities related to Naa’ila that appeared to be spirit communication. She considered them to be deeply healing. We included some of them in Secrets of Spirit Communication.
Hello Trish, this is the story.
Or one of the stories. There have been others but this one I feel has a huge meaning.
My daughter passed away on the 23rd of October 2014. She was 11 years, 9 months and 9 days old. The day she died was the Diwali Festival, as they call it in India, the Festival of Lights. It’s a day when many people apparently wish they could pass away because the Festival of Lights represents the ultimate liberation from life’s burdens. It occurs every year around the end of October.
I was told that in India some people who are on their way to other side, actually try to wait to pass away on that day. So when I was in India, people were telling me in how lucky she and I were that she passed on the day she did. She was freed from burden and went straight to the light and this has invaluable significance for my own karma.
We lived in Laos for 4 years so I organized a Theravada Buddhist ceremony at the main temple in Vientiane and decided to put her ashes in the wall of the temple, as per practice. So a plaque was needed. The best way was for me was to keep it simple, creative and not too expensive. So I took the picture of her that I love with the writing on it (image above) went to a printing shop, and had it made on an acrylic support which would be covered with glass and sealed. Three more copies were made as I wanted to keep one for me and I also sent one to my brother.
The post in Laos is reliable, yet you can never guarantee what happens. Anyhow, it cost me four times the price of the four acrylic 4 plaques to send them to Europe. This was done around January 20, 2015. Since I couldn’t find any bubble protected envelope, I put the plaques in a simple envelope and thought I would be lucky if the package arrived at its destination in one piece.
I never really bothered to check but after about a month, my brother told me the package hadn’t arrived yet. Then, on March 10, 2015, he was writing me a happy birthday email and announced the package had arrived that very day, on my birthday. Like a present. So my lovely daughter’s presence was in both places at the same in Europe with my brother and with me in Thailand, wishing me a happy birthday!
I have other stories like this in my notebook. I also wrote a few posts on my blog. I am slowly getting my normal life back, but it will never really be normal again.
Lot of love, Isabella
And now Isabella’s memoir about her journey with Naa’ila through physical life and beyond, has been published. Everything Is Fine, Mama: The Way of the Mango Girl is a beautiful story that tells us as much about Isabella as it does about her special daughter, Naa’ila.
As a parent, I can’t imagine anything worse than losing my daughter. But Isabella not only survived it, Naa’ila’s death became became the fulcrum for her spiritual growth.
Hello everyone!
Thank you Trish for this heartwarming post. As you once said in a podcast, after some time, we need to get back to our writing and read it again to feel the heat of the action again. The book is a memoir indeed, yet it also carries a strong forward-looking vision towards helping people help themselves with grief. Our times, nowadays, are packed with grief in all forms and shapes and generate heightened emotions. these are cleansing, these are our core heart for grief is at the core of life. the loss of a pet, a job, a precious object, and of course is epitomized by the loss of a child the most excruciating pain for a human being. So the book also is a toolbox for grief and a toolbox for life. If a single mother in grief made it through anyone can make it through I should say, in practice, it takes a lot of warrior-like energy, yet it possible.
I also talk and describe at length the tools, both traditional and out of the box, that i offer as an option to attempt to alleviate the pain of grief.
Weaved as a dialogue with my ever questioning daughter, the pages carry a lot of vulnerability, humanness, and optimism in spite of constant reminders on the true nature of reality! Naa’ila is alive through all the synchronicities and her energy still fills my life on a daily basis.
Can’t wait till we can get you on the podcast!
What a beautiful, heartbreaking, and uplifting story.