Sarah Ophelia Plaisance

Sarah Ophelia Plaisance

August 5^th, 2017

Sarah Ophelia Plaisance was like a shooting star, by the time you saw her, marveled at her beauty, and made a wish, she was already gone.  For the 17 days that I knew I carried her, I loved her and was honored to know her, even if most days I didn’t believe she was there.

I have spoken publicly about my miscarriage of her on Facebook, but I wanted to put something more permanent down on paper.  The date of my last missed period was April 21, although I did have some bleeding for a few days in June.  Dr. Hirsh, my OB/GYN believed that her conception date was in June.  Dr. Brown and the ER told us Sarah had stopped growing at 7 weeks, so his date didn’t line up with the June date.  Jay and I believe that she was conceived May 5^th, so she was a Beltane baby, which would have made her about 8 ½ weeks old when I miscarried her. 

The night of her conception was a lovely night.  I had started working on uploading my book that day, and was feeling fine.  My periods have been coming more regular, since I cut mom out of my life last year, and so I wondered if I might be fertile.  I kind of counted days and guessed.  Hey it was Beltane, time for love, sex and fertility, right. 

That month I began to develop breathing problems in my left lung.  It hurt when I laid down at night, I could feel something kind of squeak in my lungs, each breath felt like a rubber band was around me.  And I was exhausted, more tired than I had ever been in my entire life.  We hoped at first that it would just go away.  I was facing my own imposed deadline of trying to be finished with the book by the first of June.  I was tired but other than that I felt good, happy, and my negative thoughts seemed to have stopped.  I missed my period in May, but I thought nothing about it.  This often happens when I am under good or bad stress, no big deal right.  The doctors had told me it would take a team to get me pregnant, and 14 years of unprotected sex, had yet to yield anything. 

My breathing problems continued, as well as pain in my heart.  Of course being a big woman I am always fearful.  After about 6 to 8 weeks of this exhaustion and breathing problems I decided to risk going to the doctor, and being told it was nothing.  My regular doctor was out, so I saw a friend of his, who spent I think a sum total of 3 min with me.  Blood work, ex-rays, and a urine test later, with no pregnancy chaser (cause I told them I could not get pregnant, I wish now I had, or they had at least asked why), and no answers.  They gave me a steroid and an antibiotic, and no explanation to my problem.  Two weeks later I came back, with the same problem.  I saw my regular PCP and he said, “Well your heart is a little enlarged.  I’d like to get you in for an echo, and a CAT-scan right now.”  That was Friday night, Father’s day weekend.  Again I was asked, “Are you pregnant?”  I glared at him and told him, “No way.”  Again I regret that I didn’t say, “Why the fuck not,” and have the damn test.  Maybe she wouldn’t be dead; I’ll never know.

I did not want the cost of going in the hospital.  So we made appointments to see a cardiologist for later in the week.  When I was asked what I wanted to do I said, “I want to talk to Jay.”  So I went to his office.  He said, “You’re going.”  So we went and spent 24 lovely hours there.  For the CAT-scan they tried to put an IV, so they could give me contrast.  I blew all 7 times they tried, had a panic attack in the middle, and finally they had to do it without it.  Nothing there.  I had an Echo.  It took a month for the results to come back and be relayed to me, it was fine.  Blood work all normal, and no they didn’t do a pregnancy test, even though I asked for one.  So Saturday morning the doctor comes in and says, “Well we don’t see anything on the CAT- Scan, your blood work is fine, you’re heart is not enlarged, and since your EKG was okay we think your Echo will be too.  We don’t know what’s wrong with you.” 

Here I was in the same place, in the same hospital, with the same people I was 10 years before, when I had been given the same diagnoses.  I had pain, and no one knew why, or really honestly didn’t seem to care.  I was fucking livid!  And I told him about having been checked in to the hospital all those years ago, about my excruciating pain, and that the doctors said, “Oh it is your hiatal hernia causing you hip pain, and pain in your vagina.”  (I was later diagnosed with IC and pelvic girdle dysfunction.)  This doctor upon hearing this said, “I would see a GI doctor.  It might be your hernia.”  I was so fucking mad, I damn near threw him out of my room.  I turned away from him, he got the idea and left.  I was so mad I ripped off the heart monitor!  Jay had gone to get breakfast for himself.  I was so mad I had to throw something!  So I stripped my bed, his bed, dirty towels and put everything in the hamper.  I packed my stuff, and just waited. 

Bobby Joe and Amy, cousins who are more like an Aunt and Uncle to me, came in about that time to see me, brought me coffee, and I just cried in Amy’s arms and feel apart.  Here I had spent all this money I didn’t have, to be told, once again, that there was nothing wrong with me.  I asked the Doctor, “Is it psychosomatic?”  He said no.  I had explained to him that being a crazy, fat woman in the South doctors don’t take me seriously.  He had no explanations for my breathing problems, and seemed honestly like I was just another number and he didn’t care. 

We left there and went to Wal-Mart.  Tired of being asked if I was pregnant I bought a test.  I thought, it was be negative, so I bought a cheap one.  They are always negative, so why waste the money.  Jay and I have this system where I pee on the stick and then give it to him.  He doesn’t tell me anything unless it is positive.  But this day he was at work when I took it. 

I took the test and when the results came back positive I said, “I can’t be pregnant.  I don’t get pregnant!”  I called Jay and said, “Hey hunny.  I just took the test and there is a plus sign.  I’m not sure what to do.  Is that good thing?”  He confirmed that it was, and I could hear joy and shock in his voice.

We were both in shock and hesitant to believe it.  We had been through fertility medicine, and when that failed I was told, “Go home and lose a hundred pounds and it might happen.”  We gave up hope and have learned to be contented living without children.  Several of my childhood friends are now grandparents.

We were in shock and tried to not be too happy, because we knew it could be a false positive.  We found an OB/GYN who took high risk clients and when I talked to them on the phone they said we did not need a blood test to confirm.   We told a few friends and family.  We had to wait until Jay’s next pay check to afford the $100 co-pay to see the doctor.  So in the mean time, I read my cards again, and they confirmed it.  The Sun card came up again, just as it had in my reading a few months ago.  I called Mother Mari and asked her to do a reading to confirm my pregnancy.  She read my runes and she was told I was carrying a girl.  I knew that already, but didn’t tell her.  I had asked the sex of the child to my runes, and been told it was a girl too.  So we named her Sarah Ophelia.  What we had always wanted to name her.

I started a group of letters to her, and wrote often.  I fed her regularly, with the best food I knew to give her.  We even began to read to her.  And I rested, which I hated because I had so much to do.  I had cramps most of the time I was pregnant with her, on my right side. 

Some days I believed it, and some days I didn’t. It was too much for me to comprehend.  Even now it seems like it was all a mistake or a dream, but knowing an impossible thing is possible, I think changes you.  I thought of her often and then would forget I was pregnant and go back to what I was trying to do.  I worried constantly how we would feed and clothe her, afford to by her school supplies.  I began to read books on pregnancy, and went to the Thrifty Peanut to buy a few. 

Sunday we took Precious for Swimmy day at the lake.  It started bleeding Monday.  With IC there are times when you can have an irritant and bleed from your bladder, in fact most of the time I have microscopic blood in my urine.  I thought I am just having a flare, but by Tuesday I was passing small clots.  I believed it was coming from my bladder but by Tuesday night I could not tell where it was coming from.  Wednesday was the big day.  Jay took the morning off work to take me to the OB/GYN.  They took me in for an ultra sound, and I informed them I was having an IC flare and was bleeding.  They had never heard of IC.  They could not find her with the belly monitor, so they had to do a vaginal ultra sound.  Now under ideal conditions this is fairly painful for me because of my IC, but I was in so much pain that I was screaming, and biting my hand, and Jay’s hand to keep from screaming more.  I just wanted it over with.  They never could get good pictures.  I think because I was jumping around too much.  Finally the tech stopped and said, “I don’t know what to do.  This should not hurt her like this.”  When I got off the table I nearly collapsed, but stopped myself.  In pain Jay and I hobbled to the bathroom to put on some clean panties and a fresh kotex.  I think I was miscarrying at this point, and that is why I was in so much pain.  My cervix somehow did not seem right, like it was not as strong as it usually was.  I’ve just looked it up, and I wonder if I was already in early labor at that point.

We went in to visit with Dr. Hirsh, and she confirmed that I was in fact pregnant.  I cried I was so happy.  I showed her my period dates and she believed that the baby was about 4 weeks.  She wanted me to come back in two weeks and we would do blood tests and all that good stuff.  She was great and I really liked her.  I hope to see her again at least as an GYN.

On the way home, we called the family and told them we were confirmed.  We asked Kenny and Lucy to be Godparents, and they agreed.  I was so happy.  It was a wonderful few hours.  Jay dropped me at home.  There was a lot of blood and I was passing bigger clots.  We didn’t know what was going on.  He looked and said it was coming out of both.  He went back to work and I tried to rest, but I had problems.  I felt like I was having a period, with cramps that went down into my legs.  I had trouble sitting on my pelvis, so I laid down.  I just could not get comfortable, so I ended up laying on a pallet on the floor.  I called Pam and talked to her about 5 and told her I was in a lot of pain, and I just wanted someone to talk to.  We chatted for a while and then I called Lucy, and we began to plan my baby shower.  I told her I wanted to do it around Halloween, “A boo for the Boo,” was going to be our theme.  We talked about my pain and my bleeding and they both soothed my fears that spotting was normal in the first trimester. 

Jay came home and from then till about sunset it seemed to just get worse.  I just could not get comfortable, I could not stand, or walk without pain.  Finally I ended up leaning.  I keep going back and forth to the bathroom thinking I had to poop, but nothing came out.  And there was just so much blood.  I finally was in so much pain that I made him call my urologist and then the OB/GYN’s office.  They both said to take me to the hospital.  At one point I remember backing myself into the corner, because of the look on Jay’s face.  I started crying saying, “I’m sorry.  It will go away.  There is nothing wrong with me.”  I was terrified of another hospital bill and that I was miscarrying.  He called the boys at the fire station. 

The ambulance came down the road, and out of it came our friend Paul.  I cried, that it was him.  He is such a good man, and damn good nurse.  Before he even opened the back door of the truck, I was handing him my paperwork with my meds on it, driver’s license, and insurance card.  Jay was running around behind me packing my bag, tending to the kids, and putting Star and Henry away.  The pain I had been feeling at that time seemed to be coming in waves and intensifying.  At no time, during my entire hospital stay was I told I was in labor and having labor pains.  Even when I asked the nurse again as we were leaving the ER, “Why am I in pain?!”  I was told they did not know.  I had to go and talk to two nurses after words who confirmed that yes sometimes women who miscarry, do so with labor pains.  My pain was coming every 10 min or so.  Just this intense wave of pain, then me screaming, and finally it would subside, long enough for me to feel okay again, and then it started all over again.

I arrived at the hospital screaming my head off.  Once in the ER room the stupid doctor comes up during a contraction and asks, “How are you doing?  Are you on any meds?”  Paul had already given the nurse my list with meds on it and all my info.  I was in no capacity to talk and very pissed off at that point.  I finally was able to say to him, “She has the list.”  And at last the nurse confirmed to him that she had a list of all my medications.  Jay arrived about that time and I am not sure about what happened in the next little bit.  I was given a total of 8mg of Morphine.  That shit is awesome.  Makes you feel warm and fuzzy and forget your problems.  Gods no wonder it is so addictive, and it works almost instantly. 

I was sent for another ultrasound with much bickering.  I told him I had already had one today.  He told me he had no access to those records, which is a lie because it was all done at the same hospital, just a different branch, and all of their records are tied in together by computer.  Thankful this time I was high and it didn’t hurt that bad.  My tech said, “They couldn’t get clear pictures?”  When I told him no he stifled a laugh.  I asked him what he saw, and he answered, “The doctor will have to tell you.”

Dr. Brown came in about midnight to tell me that, “You have a UTI and you are miscarrying.  Your baby stopped growing at about 7 weeks and there is no heartbeat.”

I said, “So she’s dead.”

“There is no heartbeat.”

I asked if I would have to have an abortion, and he told me, “No, you should pass it in the next day or so.  You won’t even know.  It’s just a little clump of cells.” 

I asked him, “So I killed her, because I didn’t believe I was pregnant.  My negative energy, and somehow my body killed her, with too much worry, too much stress.”

He just looked at me confused, and then at Jay who told me, “No you didn’t kill her.”

I was loaded up with antibiotic and sent home.  It least the UTI explained why I was peeing blood.  We stopped to fill our prescriptions and have a snack.  We got home about 2 in the morning.  Jay left for work a few hours later, but came home early to be with me.  That morning I passed something that was about 6 inches long, and my pain stopped not long after that.  In it I could recognize an umbilical cord and a tiny little right leg, and the rest I couldn’t.  It was a mash of cells.  I know y’all think I am gross for reaching my hand in the toilet to retrieve it.  But I could not stand the idea of my daughter’s finally resting place being my septic tank.  I wrapped what I found up in tissue, and gave Jay a chance to look at her.  Then I wrapped her in pink tuile, circled her with dried flowers and herbs just as I had so many fur babies before her, folded it all up and tied it with a black ribbon. I rocked her for a few minutes, sang to her, and cried.  Holding her felt no different to me then holding any other child.  And I knew in that moment that I really have been a mother for more years then I care to count.  She was just a different species.  And her life was no more and no less important than my other children.  Jay and I walked out to our little grove and buried her in Holda’s Well.  The same place we had buried Punka so many years before. 

I’ve spent the last three weeks or so resting.  The first week I bled so much I didn’t know I had that much blood in me.  I made calls to my PCP and OB/GYN who were sad to hear that I had lost the baby, but unless I was soaking a pad an hour that I didn’t have to come in.  I have not seen a doctor since I was in the ER.  It took a week for all the pain to go away and two for all the blood to stop.

I have been exhausted, board out of my mind and frustrated for the last few weeks, until this week when I have finally be able to work a normal schedule.  You clean up after the dogs, wash clothes, write, do dishes, repeat.  My breathing has returned to normal, and after talking with a nurse friend of mine, she believed that it was related to the pregnancy.  That the baby was putting such strain on me that it was aggravating my asthma. 

I have been very open about the miscarriage and losing Sarah.  I posted on Facebook the morning after, and received wonderful comments, messages, and phone calls.  I think this honestly helped me get through this.  I was struck by the number of women who opened up and told me about their similar experiences.  Making those phone calls to Beau, and my family were some of the hardest things I have ever had to do.  It reminded me of when Momma Muriel died. 

Friday I posted to my yarn group and told them they had all asked what they could do for me, I said I need hugs.  Our attendance had been low lately being that its summer, so I asked if they would all please come to our regular meeting.  And several of them made a point to show.  It was very healing for me to sit with them and talk about all of this, and to listen to them tell their stories of losing their own babies.

I called a cousin who had been through a similar experience.  She had delivered an 8 month old stillborn.  She was told she could never have children.  She has PCOS to, and erratic periods so she thought nothing of missing them for so long.  She had no symptoms of pregancy.  She told me point blank, “I went to a dark place after my child died.  I will not let that happen to you.  So if you need to call me and cry and scream, I am here for you.”  I think we spent an hour talking on the phone, and it was wonderful. 

Jay has been wonderful through this all.  He has been my rock through both hospital visits, and the grieving process.  I have yet to see him cry though and that worries me.  I think he has just not been doing it in front of me.  I am continually asking him, “How are you doing with all this?” and he says, “Good baby.”  He told me in the ER that night, “I don’t care if we lose the baby.  I just can’t lose you.”  I told him, “I’m not going anywhere.” 

The other day when I cleaned her grave and showed him, he got a little teared up and sad.  I think now that I am better, he might be able to process all this a little more.  That is her grave on the picture above, circled in white quartz stones. 

The cards tell me that another child is imminent, and I hope so.  At least now we know it is possible, something we didn’t know before.  So I am taking my prenatal vitamins, and doing deep breathing exercises to try to keep my root and sacral chakras open and cleared.  Preparing to become a vessel for the next child.  I told Jay last night, that maybe Sarah came to open the door and clean me out physical, emotionally and spiritual, to prepare me for the next time she tries to come into our world.  Jay thought it was good that I could look at it like this.  I saw my councilor on Monday, and shocked as she was about all this news she said, “Ilsa you realize that if this had happened a year ago, you would have been a basket case.”  I agreed.  My life is in order now.  I am who and where and what I want to be in this life.  It took a long time, and as hokey as it sounds, I think I am ready now. 

Ilsa

Homage to Princess

November 16, 2016

It seems like she was just here.  Her beds are still here, so are her pictures.  I have video of her, and recordings of her voice.  It has been almost two months since she left us.  Princess Tator  Plaisance crossed threw the veil on September 20^th, 2016.  We were with her ever moment.  She was 12, ancient for a big dog.

I talked about her a bit in Momma Muriel, but now I want to talk about the end.

The last few years of her life were painful, I am sorry to say.  Baby aspirin helped ease the pain, but she had arthritis in her hips as well as hip dysplasia.  I am afraid pain was constant in her life.  In the last year or so, she would bark incessantly.  It wasn’t until the end we understood that she had very little control over her back legs.  She was barking to get our attention. I would go over, pull her a few feet off of her bed, to get her started, and then she would walk and do whatever she wanted.  Starting seemed to have been the hardest thing for her.

I watched helpless as her body failed her in the last few years.  Adding Boudreaux to the pack created an extra annoyance she didn’t need.  He was always biting at her to try to get her to play, wanting to run and romp, occasionally she has the energy to play back, but not often.  I would watch with great sorrow, pity, and compassion as she tried to lower her back just a few inches to get in and out of the dog door.  The last few months she would sit, stick her head out, and cry or bark.

We knew for a long time that this was her long goodbye.  I wanted to put her down a year ago.   She told me again and again that she wanted to go home.  She would sit at Prince’s grave.  She missed her pack, her friends.  Jay would not have it.  He wanted her to make it one more summer so we could take her to the lake. 

Princess loved to swim.  So much so we have kept a small swimming pool full for her, for many, many years.  I have seen her in that thing, when there was ½ inch of ice on it.  For the last 3 or 4 years we have taken her to the dog swimming area at Cypress Black Bayou Park, at least one day a year.  This special day is known as “swimmy day.”  It includes not only a lovely car ride, but a picnic as well.  We have in the past had burgers, fried chicken, but this year it was Chinese food. 

We all ate, then swam, and had the most lovely time.  Princess liked the shallow water.  Precious, who also loves the water and enjoys swimmy day, loves the deep.  So we try to find a happy balance sitting in the mud, where Princess could lay down if she wanted and then Precious, with her little Doxie legs could swim between me and Jay.  She likes to do laps. The sun was warm that day and the water was perfect.  It was a wonderful time, and when it came time to go Princess did not want to leave.  I know she knew it was her last swimmy day. 

Then Jay got sick, and in the hospital her cried and told me he wanted to put Princess down.  He wanted her to make it to Christmas.  I knew she had barely made it to swimmy day.  I talked him into a few days after Thanksgiving.  She didn’t make it.

Thankful Jay came back from a festival in September with a little money.  We were able to put some aside in case of emergency.  As always the emergency came. 

I came home from Druid one Saturday and she could not walk.  She could walk when I left.  Princess had suddenly become downed.  She could not walk.  She could not potty by herself.  We knew it was time.  She did not want to live like this. 

We feared we would not be able to put her down humanely.  That we would have to shoot her in the head.  We could not do that, not after all the years of service she had given us.  She was after all our baby.  We had raised her since she was 8 weeks old.  We had just enough money in the savings to take her to the dr.  We called for an appointment, on Tuesday afternoon.  Jay hoped that work would let him off so he could be there.  We were so happy they did.

So for two days we dug her grave.  Princess supervised the whole thing, lying in the dirt we were digging up.  Now in Louisiana, unless you have a large piece of machinery, digging is not easy.  First you have to get through the roots in the ground, this requires reciprocating saws and hedge trimmer, which are often so tangled you have to use a spoon and a brush to dig out a root just to cut it.  Then a layer of sand and finally clay, and once you hit it, the dig is over. 

Jay and I worked on it together for a long time Sunday, and when we went to bring Princess in the house, she did not want to go.  She fought us and tried to head to the truck.  She wanted it over with.  We had talked to her at length about what was going to happen to her, and how she wanted things.  But she was still pissed that it was not yet time.

The rest of the day was just for her.  She had so many experiences.  We took so many pictures, and tried to lay with her as much as possible.  We took her to Nana’s to say goodbye.  Drove into the Dairy Queen got her an ice cream cone.  We drove past Cross Lake at which she cried and wanted desperately to get out and go swim.  There was no place for us to do that for her, and in the condition she was in it would have been too hard to get her down into the swim area at Black Bayou.  So we gave her one last swim in her pool. 

Monday I lay on my belly and dug the rest of her grave.  Sophia and Boudreaux even helped.  I had to yell at Boudreaux to get out of the hole so I could work.  He just thought I was digging a nice whole to lay in.  It was very macabre.  That night she had a steak dinner with sweet potato, and a candle lit bath with her daddy.  She went to the Gods clean, full, and happy.

Princess who had been mad at us Sunday, was damn near despondent by Tuesday.  But when daddy came home and said, “Let’s go.”  You have never seen a girl so happy.  She was finally going home.  Daddy Jay had smoked her a pork bone and she got to lick on it on her way to the vet’s office.  The only time I saw her nervous was when she was in there.  She was shaking but happy.  They gave her a sedative, and then once she was asleep the pink juice.  We all wept. 

I had been strong the whole time, a cry here, a cry there.  I knew what had to be done.  I could fall apart later.  When I got in the truck I screamed and cried, till there was nothing left.  At the base of her grave is a quilt that Jay and I had made long ago.  It had been part of her bed, and now was so tore up it was beyond use.  Her pink pillow to lay her head on, her bone, and several chocolate chip cookies to take give to Heimdall on her journey over the bridge.  She is covered in the blanket that I made for her this spring.  I made is specifically for when she would pass over.

The last year or so it became a thing with us.  We would tell her to get in her bed, and then Jay or I would cover her up with whatever blanket she wanted.  She had two.  The one I had made, which is buried with her, and one made for me as a baby, which I kept.  I can’t even look at that blanket now without crying.

It is rare that we have had to put a child down because of age.  Punka, and now Princess.  We have cried ourselves silly.  We came home and howled for her.  I even recorded her barking, but it drives the kids nuts.  My pack did what they were supposed to do the night she died.  They barked, cried, and howled for her, even Boudreaux.  We woke up out of a dead sleep about 3 in the morning to the most blood curdling sound we had ever heard.  It was Boudreaux howling for her to come back to the pack.  He woke me the next morning and said, “I don’t think she’s coming back.”  We had to explain to him again about death. 

I cried and wailed for her for days.  I still have yet to put her picture on the ancestor altar, even though her collar is there.  My house seems bigger with her gone, bigger and emptier.  This little tiny soul, who had no idea she was so big, no idea why people were afraid of her.  I miss having to go get her out of the back bathroom when it thunders, or when Jay turns on the compressor, all things she was afraid of.  I miss covering her up at night.  I miss calling to her when I clean the pool out, that it is time for a swim.  I miss her funny face, and they way she would boof at me to do something, like I was not worth the whole bark.  I miss the way she rolled in the grass, and made these wonderful noises.  In a million ways every day I miss her. 

No words can sooth a mother’s heart who has lost a child, human or otherwise.  In my moments sometimes I forget.  Last night I though, where is she?  I haven’t seen her in a bit.  I waited a while to write this to you because I wanted to be able to get all the way through it, without breaking down.  I know she had a good life with us.  I know I was a good mother to her.  I know now she is safe, and happy, and no longer hurting.  She was a gift, and we are all richer for her having shared her life with us.  Rest well little one, rest well.

Ilsa

Homage to Latonia Barto

Death comes for us all.  No one is getting out of here alive.  It is inevitable.  How we live between birth and death is what matters, not how it ends.  Every death touches us all.  Each life lost is a detriment to the entire world.  We are all human: gay, straight, cisgenered, transgendered, Muslim, Christian, Pagan, Democrat, Republican, Black, White, Yankee, and Southerner.

I’ve known love, and I’ve known loss.  One thing I know for sure is we all return, whether in animal or human form, or as a single drop of rain.  We as beings, both human and otherwise, seek this life, this existence.  We choose this life. 

The dead tell me what they crave the most is being with the living.  Being with the ones they left behind.  They can do little more than watch.  All life that passes away returns to us, if we are smart enough to see it.  It is a circle, ebbing and flowing without end, endlessly repeating.  It is dizzying, mesmerizing and heart breaking all at once.

My thoughts have turned to death, because earlier this week my beloved friend and spiritual soul sister LaTonia passed threw the veil.  She was a beautiful, kind, loving woman who never believed in limits or labels.  I pray she finds peace and rest on the other side.  For the last 7 years she battled Leiomyosarcoma, or smooth muscle cancer, but she was so much more then cancer.  She was a constant fountain of giving and creating.  She was a talented artist in what ever medium she chose. 

Those of you following along know that I met Melinda in a yarn meeting and that we were part of a group called Chicks-with-Sticks.  I have been into fiber arts since I was 11 and re-learned to crochet at Barbara’s feet.  Oma had taught me when I was little, in fact it is part of my first memory, but I forgot as I got older.  I have continued crocheting most of my life, learning to knit, weave, spin, sew, and tat along the way.  If it has a needle involved I want to learn to do it. 

I met LaTonia many years ago in a Chicks-with-Sticks meeting.  For many years we all coexisted happily together.  When Melinda and I parted company (Billy the Exterminator) I basically left the group.  I did not want to run the chance of seeing Melinda.  I went to one more meeting around Christmas to find out that the lady who ran Chicks-with-Sticks, was leaving.  Her work had changed and she was tired of all of the drama that Melinda and I brought to the group, all though she never put it like that.  It was all implied.  I was ashamed and embarrassed that I had caused so much trouble, so I left and did not come back for many years.

A chance meeting with LaTonia one day at the Pines Road Library brought it all back into perspective.  She threw her arms around me and just held me so tight.  She said, “Where have you been?  I’ve missed you!”  I told her how bad I felt about breaking up the group, and that I didn’t want to run back into Melinda.  She said that there was a new group called “Yarn Play.”  They were meeting at the same time, in the same place, with most of the same people, minus Melinda.  She had not been around in some time.  She invited me back.  I told her I already had Druid on Saturday, but I would try to see if I could balance two meetings at once. 

I did.  I came back and it was like I never left.  I joined my sisters in stitching and bitching ever Saturday.  When I stopped going to Druid after all the problems I had with D&K (Goat Problems) Yarn Play became as close to a coven as I had, for more than a year.  Although almost every woman there was a Christian, they were the women I went to with questions, my hopes, my joys, my fears.  They were my tribe of elders, although many of them were my age or younger.  Since Juno and I patched things up and I went back to my Druid meetings, I am back to balancing both meetings.  Yarn play in the mornings and Druid in the afternoons. 

LaTonia’s health was never far from our minds, especially towards the end.  Once we all got settled with our knitting or crochet projects, and if she was not there, we would ask where she was and how she was fairing.  LaTonia I think often shared with us, and not with many others, at least part of her struggle.  She once told me she stopped telling her extended family what was going on with her medically ‘cause she could not handle the drama.  I think they often saw her as broken and fragile, when she was perfectly capable, she just had cancer.  What stories were shared in Yarn Play I will not print here.  We keep each other’s confidences, and confessions. 

LaTonia continued to create beautiful and inspiring pieces of fiber art, whether in crochet or knit.  I don’t think she knew how to not create.  She made blankets for the Linus Project, hats for the cancer center, creating even when her hands shook. As I began to understand that her time was growing short, I encouraged her to begin looking at her projects still in progress, or “on the needle” as we say, and decide who should finish them and what should happen to them.  Last Saturday I watched as friend bound off a blanket LaTonia had been working on for about a year.  I knew if she had finally given up her projects, she was letting go.  I knew it would not be long.  She died the next day.

In November 2015, I began to write my first real novel, which is at the moment called “The Treehouse.”  LaTonia’s beauty and artistic ability became the inspiration for one of my main characters, who I named Anne.  Her beautiful son Gabe, became the inspiration for Anne’s son, and namesake.  I would call or message her with questions I had, about growing up biracial, Gabe, and motherhood.  We became even closer.  I gave her all that I had written.  One of the great joys of my life came at my 40^th birthday, when she told me she liked what I had written and had made a connection with Anne.  It was the greatest complement she could have ever given me, and I cried.  As LaTonia began to slip from us, I felt as if Anne was dying as well.  Since her death, it has taken me some weeks to get back to working on my book. 

I had had a phone conversation with LaTonia about a week before she passed away.  She told me she was not ready, that she wanted to stay.  She fought until the end striving to stay around for her son and her husband.  I asked her one time if she knew how long she had left to live.  She said, “I don’t want to know.”  She believed having an idea of the date of her death, would limit the quality of her life.  Latonia was a woman who always beat the odds.  Most of those diagnosed with her type of cancer live 3 years from time of diagnosis, 5 if you are lucky, she lived 7.  I believe because she attacked the disease both physically, emotionally and spiritually. 

She was a complex woman with a complicated history, just like all of us are.  Her smile, zest for life, optimism, patience, smile, laugh, and encouragement to those around us was infectious.  Her’s was a life lived fearlessly in love and compassion.  We are all the better for having known her. 

Ilsa

After Momma Muriel's Death

My health had been in decline for some time prior to Momma Muriel’s death.  For months I had been going thru sever stomach and lower belly pain.  There were some nights it was so bad I was on the floor crying, rocking on my hands and knees trying to survive the pain.  I had been hospitalized with hip and stomach pain in December of 2007.  After three days and a battery of tests, the doctors concluded that I had a hiatal hernia in my stomach and that was causing the pain in my hip.  They called it reflexive pain.  In truth they had no idea what was wrong with me.  I was beginning to think my job in life was to live in pain. 

A few months later, still in pain, the Dr’s begin to believe it was my gallbladder.  I had test that showed it to be working just fine.  The Dr’s came in and said, “Well we can take it out and hope it fixes your pain.  It has about a 50/50 shot of working.”  I told them to call me when they could give me better odds.  It was some years later that the lawsuits about Yasmin, an anti-testosterone birth control pill, came out.  I had been on Yasmin for several years.  But at the time I was having this pain, I was off of it.  They now believe this medicine to cause problems with the gallbladder. Yasmin and Metformin were what I had been taking to combat my PCOS.  They were the only drugs available to treat the diseases at the time. 

My pain came and went over the next few months.  I began to see a new OB/GYN a few days after Momma Muriel’s death.  I explained to her that I was in a tremendous amount of pain, and that I often had pain after I had intercourse.  I had told my previous OB/GYN this for the past five years. He told me I was too tense, that I needed to relax and have a glass of wine before I had sex. As I did not want to go through life having to drink in order to have sex, I got a new Dr.  She said the most beautiful words to me that you can say to a person in chronic pain, “If you’re having pain, there is a reason.”

 After listening to my symptoms, taking a history and examining me, she decided to send me to a Urologist.  I had been to one before.  I kept having what I thought were UTI’s all the time, but my urine was always clean.  I had struggled with urinary problems most of my life, but it really became quite bad after I left Mike.  At one point they had to put me on a bladder pill for having to go so frequently.  I remember being excited that I could go and pee whenever I wanted.  I remember drinking cranberry juice all the time, and taking lots of AZO pills, because everyone told me that it would help.  The UTI problems came and went. The first Urologist I had been sent to, early on, told me he really didn’t do women’s health.   He could give me no answers.  My new OB/GYN sent me to someone who specialized in women’s urinary health.  A month later I was diagnosed with Interstitial Cystitis.  I was told to get off all caffeine and high acidic drinks like grapefruit and orange juice.  Thank the Gods I was already depressed ‘cause I slept for weeks.  I had been living on cokes and coffee for many years, so getting off was not easy.  It finally leveled out after about 6 weeks. 

Interstitial Cystitis (IC) ought to be called Painful Irritated Bladder Syndrome.  I have the sensation that I am coming down with a UTI all the time.  Three of its primary symptoms are having to pee all the time, pain or burning in the pelvis and pain during sex.  Cranberry juice and other acidic drinks make IC worse.  This disease limits how long I can sit or stand.  How long I can ride in a car and what I can wear.  When I am having a flair, I cannot even stand to be touched.  It is a progressive and painful disease.  It will only get worse with time.   There is only one medication which is very expensive without insurance.  Although there may be genetic components to IC, there is to date no real known cause and currently no cure. 

So within the span of a few months Momma Muriel dies, I am given a devastating diagnosis, Novelle dies and then Precious the first died.  The hurricane winds had been blowing a lot that fall.  On ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­September 2^nd, 2008 what was left of Hurricane ­­­­Gustav rolled thru town.  It was the first one that had hit us that year.  We were without power for 55 hours.  That’s kind of hellish when you are dependent on a CPAP to sleep with.  My neighbors, who are on a different electric company, that we can’t get on, were out about 30 minutes. 

As the storm rolled in the winds began to change.  The dogs started going ape shit, chasing all the new smells.  Precious the first ran off in the woods.  Not a big thing.  We have such a big place that we let our fur kids roam free, and we have a doggie door so they might come and go as they please.  They were always in the woods and Precious the first loved to do nothing more than hunt.  My friend Marie and I were sitting on the porch enjoying the breeze as the power had already gone out.  As the rain started I began to count kids and came up one short.  Precious must still be out hunting.  I remember Jay and me going out back of the house tying to sense where she was. I got nothing.  I became hoarse from calling from her so long.  I finally collapsed in the tall wet grass, weeping.  Jay had to help me back in the house.  I was distraught.  She would not stay out in the rain.  She never did.  Something had to have happened to her, something bad.  She was my light.  She was my child.  She and I had been thru so much together.  I could not lose Momma Muriel and her too.  It was all too much. 

A few days later I began to hear Precious the first’s voice in my head telling me she was gone.  I did something then I had not done in a long time.  I did some non-dominate hand writing.  What I wrote was a letter from Precious the first to me.  She told me not to cry, that she was okay and in the heavens with Oma and Momma Muriel.  She said she had been chasing a rabbit and got hit by a car.  That she had died quickly.  I begged her to lead me to her body so that I might bury her.  She told me she did not want me to see her that way.  She told me that she died doing what she loved, being free.  She thanked me for loving her and bringing her to this land.  She said she wanted to ride in the Wild Hunt with Holda.  I told her that was fine, but she had to come home to me very soon.  I begged her to at least have something of hers so I might have closure.

The day after the writing, one of the fur kids brought me her collar.  Complete intact with her tags, and undamaged.  It was a breakaway collar.  Meaning it was designed to unbuckle should she get hung in something, so as not to choke her.  It was still buckled.  My guess is that she got hung in the bushes chasing a rabbit and it slipped off her head.  Despite looking for one, we never found a body.  I still don’t know how much of what I wrote was me and how much was her.  Or was it all me?  I don’t know.  I may never know.

I felt at times I would break, and perhaps I did, and I was remolded.  It was all too much for me to handle. I had to keep reminding myself that with great death, comes great rebirth.  I think Jay took Precious the first’s death harder then Momma Muriel’s.  At least with Momma Muriel’s we had been prepared, and she had lived a long life. We had known it was coming for a long time, and we had time to say goodbye.  Precious the first’s death was just out to the blue.  One moment she was there and then the next she was just gone. 

When Momma Muriel died she left us the land we live on and half her estate.  A few weeks later I told Jay that for the first time in my life I wanted to buy a dog.  I wanted to buy a Dachshund girl and have the joy of raising her from a pup. I knew a good responsible Dachshund breeder in town that raised beautiful fur children.  I talked with her and told her that Jay and I wanted a pup.  We were hoping for a black and tan little girl.  She told me that she did not have any girls available at the time, but that Cookie, one of her girls would be in heat soon.  She hoped to breed her to Dan, one of her males.  I told her if she had a girl from the litter, no matter the color, that we would like her.  We were content to wait for the right fur child to come into our lives. 

Now Dachshund genetics are a weird and complex thing.  You have 2 sizes, Mini and Standard.  Unless you are from Europe and then you have Rabbit, Mini and Standard.  Rabbit sized ones are so small they can go in a rabbit hole.  You have three coat types; smooth, wire hair, and long hair.  Then there are multiple colors with variations like piebald and dapple.  I believe there are 16 different colors and combinations.  Cookie was a standard chocolate long hair.  Dan is a standard red and white piebald.  With that combination we had no idea what we would get.

On December 21^st, 2008, at noon, Precious Teufel Plaisance was born.  She was born on Holda’s holy day and at her holy hour.  She was the only girl born to a litter full of boys and she was black and tan, just like her grandmother had been. We believe Precious the second to be Precious the first reincarnated.  Now that is not that odd of a belief.  Our animals often return to us.  Have you never caught yourself saying, “You know she reminds me of this dog I used to have.”  Many animals believe it is their duty to protect us our whole lives, or even generations of our families.  Even if that means they might have to go thru a few bodies to do it. 

We fought over who was going to be the first to hold her.  I won!  Oh she was so tiny!  She fit in my hand.  I got to hold her when she was just a few hours old.  Her little eyes and her little ears were closed and she still had a bit of dried umbilical cord on her.  Oh she was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen!  But then doesn’t every mother say that about her child.  Fur, skin, scale or feathered it matters not.  A child is a child, and after many long months, mine had finally come home.

Precious Teufel, who I will call Precious the second here, needed time to grow and learn important things from her doggie mommy before coming home with us.  You take a pup away from its mom too soon and you end up with a neurotic dog.  My breeder friend would not release her until she was 8 weeks old.  Which I think is just wonderful because that lets them be better adjusted.  She always has her pup’s best interest in mind.  But we were allowed to visit until she could come home and got regular pictures.  We got to bring her home around Valentine’s Day. 

We maintain a good relationship with her breeder and even adopted Cookie, when her breeding days were over.  Although I got to hold her first she quickly became a Daddy’s girl, again.  In many ways she is still who she was.  She loves her daddy and she still loves to swim.  But in some ways she is different, and that is fine with us.  Now she could care less about hunting, she is content to lie on the couch.  Time changes everyone, but not who we are at our core.

I am still often not sure what happened to Precious the first.  Did it happen the way she told me?  Did whatever is in my woods get her?  Did someone pick her up on the highway?  Or did she end up living out her finally years at a neighbor’s house I know nothing about?  Did she end up in the pound and was put down?  Is she still alive?  These are the things I torture myself with before I go to sleep at night.  Is Precious the second really her reincarnation or am I just fooling myself and seeing what I want to.  Sometimes I wonder.

Ilsa

 

Momma Muriel's

Before we left Ebarb we acquired two more souls to our tribe.  A spunky, 1 ½ year old, little tan Chihuahua we named Sophia, after the Goddess of wisdom.  Sophia had been stolen by some kids living in the Zwolle projects.  They could not bring her inside, so they kept her tied up outside and feed her when they could.  A friend’s son had acquired her after that.  I begged him to let me have her.  He finally relented.  Jay was so excited to finally have a Chihuahua in his life again. 

About the same time, I was visiting with some friends who were also in the Humane Society when I meet the sweetest little black and tan girl.  She was about 4 weeks old at that time.  They had found her and a brother at a dumpster outside of Fisher, Louisiana.  Oh she was so tiny back then!  I kept coming over to visit this little one I was just sure was going to be a Dachshund.  My follower rescuers told me they were going to put her down because they thought she was anti-social.  I said “Give her to me.  Let my pack work with her.”  We convinced Jay and I took her home at 8 weeks old.  We named her Princess.  Our royal court was now complete.  She told me that she had seen her mother killed in front of her and did not want to live.  It took a while of being with my fur children, but she eventually came around.   As to her breed, well a year and a half after getting her, we finally came to the conclusion she was in fact half Rottweiler and half Lab..  Laugh all you want.  She still thinks she’s a Dachshund.  I’ve never really had to worry about her getting on the counters and she will hide from bigger dogs. 

Princess is very special.  I don’t know that she is anti-social, but I have often said that if she was human she would be autistic.  She does really well, but she has her limits.  When there are too many people in the house, or it is too loud she will go and hide.  And of course she also does this with fireworks and thunderstorms. 

So the seven of us, Jay, me, Precious, Pumpkin, Prince, Sophia and Princess all prepared to get ready to move.  We had to find someone who could move our little trailer before the winter and the wet weather came.  If we waited too long it would be too wet to move us, and we would have to wait till spring.  I immediately began to make phone calls and finally found someone to move our trailer to Momma Muriel’s property.  In the mid part of October 2005 we left Ebarb, our painful history behind and headed home.

We all stayed with Momma Muriel while we got everything hooked up, all of us but Princess.  She went to live with my parents until we had everything hooked up.  She was just too big with all of us in such a small house.  It took me a few weeks of work to learn the dance to get back into our house.  First we had to dig the test pits to find out if we needed a septic system, to get the 911 number, to get the water turned on, to get the electricity turned on, and to finally get the septic system, which my parents paid for.  Nowhere was all this written down.  I only found this out by trial and error, and lots and lots of phone calls.  My goal was to have the lights on in the house by Halloween, but I didn’t make it.  It took us about 3 weeks to get everything turned on.  We got in our house about the second week in November.

Jay and I were overjoyed to be somewhere we were wanted.  Ebarb was a very closed community.  They are very distrustful of outsiders.  If you were not related or at least Catholic, they did not want you.  We made very few friends while we lived there.  It was a hard community to get into.  I had made one good friend down there.  We were tight until one day, while I was asleep on her couch, her husband decided he wanted to fondle me.  When I told her she said, “Oh he’s just drunk.  He doesn’t know what he’s doing.”  Needless to say I was glad to be away from him.

We had two and a half wonderful years out here with Momma Muriel.  She would often ask me what I wanted when she died, her jewelry, stuff in her house, her land.  I told her, “I just want more time with you, and I would really like this piece of land so we don’t have to move after you are gone.”  She lived her life, we lived ours and we met in the middle often for breakfast or dinner. 

From the time that Momma Muriel went on dialysis she knew that she was living on borrowed time. She had her will, her do not resuscitate (DNR) order, and her power of attorney all in order. She had even written her own obituary.  We had several close calls in the short time we were together, a few months before her death she had developed a bleeding ulcer.  As I drove her to the hospital we talked at length about how she wanted her funeral, what to dress her in, where to bury her, and who she wanted to do her service.  I am very grateful I had that conversation with her, because when the time came I knew what to do and where everything was.

She and I talked about death frequently.   She would have a bad day and say, “Ah!  I ain’t worth killing!  You ought to just take me out back and shoot me!  I’m going to get off this old dialysis and just die!”

I would tell her, “Before you do that, give me a couple of weeks to plan you a going away party.  We’ll have a big crawfish boil and invite all your family to say goodbye.  Then you get off dialysis and we know that you will have two weeks to live.”

She’d get this kind of pissed look on her face and say, “Oh hell Ilsa I was only kidding!”  and she would go right back to what she had been doing before.

Momma Muriel knew that I was pagan and she didn’t care. She still loved me anyways and never tried to convert me. I talked with her at length about what I thought would happen to her when she died.  I told her that in many cases I had heard of people dreaming or seeing their dead relatives just prior to their death.  I believe it is the dead’s way of helping us prepare for the next life.  I also told her that when she died she would probable see a light.  In the light were all of her family, and that she was to go towards it. I told her heaven is a bigger place then we think of.   I feel that each religion has their own version of the heavens and they all touch.  That travel between each was possible and I would see her again.  I then told her my belief that after she had been in the heavens for some time, and she was ready, she would be given the opportunity to return to earth, to be reincarnated. 

One day we had just come back from grocery shopping and were going in the house.  She began to tell me that the night before she had dreamed her Mom and her sister were in the bed with her, talking to her.  I knew she never dreamed of her dead family members.  I knew it was an omen.  They were preparing her.

Three weeks later on June 21^st, 2008 Momma Muriel fell and cracked her pelvis.  She lasted 13 days in the hospital, passing her 81^st birthday while there.  After she went in the hospital she became septic and developed a bowl obstruction.  She had surgery, but her body was just to week from all of that and her failed kidneys to continue.  The Dr’s told us that if she lived she would have to spend the rest of her life in a nursing home.  I knew that she would hate that. Her independence was everything to her.  It always had been.   She died on Friday July 4^th, 2008 at noon.  We like to say she went out with a bang. 

I got the call to come to the hospital.  That she was close to death and they were calling the family in to say goodbye.  I floored it.  I drove as fast as I could.  As I rode in the elevator up to her room, I knew she was dead.  When I arrived she had died about 5 minutes before.  It was like all the air was sucked out of me.  But I knew I had to retain my composure, I had to be strong for Jay.  He had arrived just in time.  She had turned towards him, smiled, winked at him and then peacefully passed away.  His face was the last thing she ever saw.  Jay thinks she stayed alive until he could get there. 

They ushered us out of the room so that they could disconnect her from her IV’s and other tubes.  While they did that I tried desperately to reach her priest to come to the hospital.  Turns out he was outside mowing and did not come back in until that evening.  The hospital called the chaplain on duty to come and pray with us: Jay and I, my parents, and Jay’s parents.  As we prayed I begin to hear my name being called loudly in my head. 

“Ilsa!  Ilsa!  Turn around!  What the hell is going on??”  I knew the voice, it was Momma Muriel.  I smiled politely, prayed with them and then after a few minutes of everyone saying their goodbyes I asked for Jay and I to be alone with her body.  Jay was confused but by now had learned to follow my lead in these things. I closed the door and turned to look in the corner of the room where I felt there was energy.  With my third eye I could see her energy in dazzling ribbons of white and gold. 

“Ilsa!  What the hell is going on?”  she said

“Momma Muriel, I’m sorry, you are dead.”

“Oh well why the hell didn’t anyone tell me that?” she said

I explained that she should see a light in just a bit, and when she did she should go towards it. I told her I would stay with her until she did.  It took a few minutes but I soon felt a portal open and she went through it. I collapsed into tears and refused to leave her body.  I didn’t want anyone to mess with her or be mean to her.  We had basically been her care takes and advocates for the last 3 years.  It’s hard to give up that role.  Jay convinced me I must be hungry and to come to have something to eat with him.  Momma Muriel would not want me lose my strength.  I agreed and left her body. 

Forgive me as I do not remember everything that happened that weekend.  She died on a Friday and we had her wake on a Monday.  I don’t remember if her presence stayed with me or not. I called several of my pagan friends to come to the wake and be with me for comfort.   I do know that once I got to her wake she began talking just as loud as she did in the hospital.  It was a constant stream of, “Oh I haven’t seen her in years.  And what the hell is she doing here.  Or Oh I never could stand her.”  I finally had to walk into the bathroom and tell her that she was going to have to shut up and let me do this, or I was not going to make it thru.  That there would be time for a mental breakdown later.  I remember going back in the little room where her body was and receiving guests while holding my friends hands and just shaking.   We buried her on a Tuesday in accordance with her wishes and the customs of her church.  It was one of the worst days of my life.

I kind of lost it after Momma Muriel died.  One of the only people who had ever given me unconditional love, and was my best friend was gone.  I felt I had lost Oma all over again.  I don’t remember much of that time.  I stayed in bed a lot.  I felt I had lost my reason for being, my compass in life.  She remains one of the coolest people I have ever known. 

Ilsa