Dragonfly · Wings

On July 4, 2003, we took Jasmine home from St. Louis. We had been there eight months and in that time, Jasmine had a lung transplant and Nina came into the world. I remember the trip home vividly - it was late before we even left St. Louis and Nina screamed all the way home. We stopped at the State Farm claims office outside of Collinsville to try to soothe her, but she was having none of it. Still, we made it to Bloomington, checked into a hotel and fell deeply asleep. It was a huge milestone for us to be able to go home because it was three hours from the hospital. It was at once terrifying and triumphant.

Last night I fell asleep early. As we only have Nina right now (Gab is on vacation with a friend) and Nina had no real expectation of fireworks, we opted not to fight traffic and stayed home. I wandered into the bedroom at about 8:30 or so with the intention to read and fell asleep soon thereafter. For most of the evening I had an incredibly strong sense of Jasmine's presence. At one point I woke up with my hand outstretched to the side of the bed, trying to touch her. I remarked to Jeff how strange it was that I would expect to see her next to the bed when she so rarely came into our bedroom at night. Instead, she would lay in her bed and yell until we got her whatever she wanted.

I felt her last night though. And then I laid and wondered whether it was really her or just hypnogogic hallucination... maybe wishful thinking. I don't know. Either way, she was heavy on my mind last night. I really miss her.

And the jasmine that lives outside my front door is getting ready to bloom again.

Last night I watched All About My Mother or more accurately, Todo sobre mi madre as it was a Spanish film set in Barcelona and Madrid. I knew the basic concept of the movie based on the Netflix blurb, but I was really unprepared for the strong current of mother grief that ran through the film. In fact, Manuela, the mother of the 17 year old son who died, was a transplant coordinator who ended up donating her son's heart. It was like a surreal trip through my own grief and my eyes are still swollen this morning. The anniversary of Jasmine's death looms larger and larger every day. This morning I saw that The Bridge to Terebithia is being released on February 16 -- for those who don't know, it's a children's classic that deals with death and grieving. I remember reading it at a family friend's insistence. I think it may have been the first time I encountered a child's death in reading. I probably read it in the second grade. Just the movie trailer brought the threat of tears back.

Three years later. I thought this would be done. The crying part, the part that feels like my heart has imploded in my chest, the part that feels like it just happened. In fact, I mentally started the countdown on December 20, just like I did on the first and second anniversaries. In fact, it continues and in fact, it still hurts deeply. It has gotten easier, perhaps, to answer questions about how many children I have. Maybe it's because it doesn't come up as often as I'm pretty settled in my circle of friends and co-workers. Maybe there are little things that get easier. Apparently, though, it doesn't get easier to recognize the loss. And it doesn't get easier to miss her and wish that she'd had a chance to continue blooming and becoming.

Last night I cried quietly for a long time. It's so weird how the pain of losing Jasmine goes from a very faint ache to a roar so quickly, how it moves from chronic to acute. Yesterday I had my first real "asthma attack." By that I mean I wasn't exercising, I'm not sick and I didn't, to my knowledge, do anything in particular to make it happen. I just had a really hard time breathing in the middle of the morning at work. Four puffs of the inhaler later, I was still a bit tight, but high and shaky. Can holding in grief cause an asthma attack? Probably. Seems appropriate that I would find myself unable to breathe freely.

Stew took his two youngest and two bunches of carnations to Jasmine's bench yesterday. He sent pictures and I actually had to take a break after I looked at them. I was so grateful that he remembered, that someone visited her place yesterday. ladyavalon42, it's so funny that you cautioned against selling the house because it would be losing the last place Jasmine lived. I do miss the house, but moreover, I miss the community that cradled us and her as she had her last years.

( Jasmine's Bench )

Right about this time 13 years ago, I was out on a walk with my closest friend and my cousin's wife. I had laid down to take a nap midday after being up most of the night before with contractions and my water broke. Being young and eager, I decided to take a walk to speed up labor. Jeff laments to this day my decision to walk in a straight line away from the house rather than in circles. We ended up on campus at CSU Chico when the stronger contractions came, along with a nice new gush of amniotic fluid. We were only, oh two or three miles from home at this point. Jendy ran home to tell Jeff I needed someone to come get me -- he panicked (as new dads do) and rushed to pick me up. We took our hopeful selves to the hospital only to be sent home for a long and painful night of contractions.

Jasmine took a long time coming into this world. Tomorrow she would be 13. She'd have just finished her last year of elementary and would be preparing for middle school. Thinking of the what-elses' makes me unbearably sad. I really thought this was supposed to get easier, these anniversaries, but they don't. I really miss my Jasmine. I miss who she was and I miss who she was becoming. Every time I stop moving or occupying my brain with something else, I face this grief.

I'm not sure what I'll do tomorrow or how the day will be. Yesterday was really horrible as it was the anniversary of the day contractions started. Today was okay -- I was still riding the running high, and I was/am doing okay. Stew is going to take a rose to her bench in Bloomington tomorrow at my request. I wish I could do it myself. But mostly, I wish I didn't have to.

I didn't talk about it much at the time because I felt like I had failed somehow, like there was something wrong with me or worse, that there really is nothing else out there and all we are is carbon. I was ashamed to admit it, me, this person with such a strong sense of spirituality, a practice that I direct, part of a community where I've taught classes, for chrissakes, given talks at local churches.

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It took me a long time to come to terms with that -- I still am, truth be told. But part of the problem was all the stuff I've read, everything I knew about death created expectations of how it would be and when it didn't happen that way, I really doubted myself and literally everything else in my life. Jasmine's death made all the rituals of religion, all the man-made parts seem trite and trivial. I'm still looking for the sense of connection with her. I'm regaining my connection with my spiritual path, but it has been a challenge, one I haven't shared with very many people. It would be so much easier if I could shut off the Analyzer, the Rationalizer, the Logical Spock of my brain that constantly tells me what I can and cannot really be experiencing. The song "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" pretty much sums it up for me most days. I get close, and I see glimpses, but the wholeness of the divine still eludes me.

I don't write about her as often as I used to, but I think about her every day. A candle burns next to my computer downstairs with her picture propped up in front of it. At night I lay in bed and memories wash over me, regrets over things unsaid, actions not taken, but mostly I just miss her. I say her name often; she is part of our conversation on any given day. Frequently I see something (like last night's viewing of The Corpse Bride) and I feel the sting of tears at missing the opportunity to meet her eyes in silent acknowledgment of a joke or a cool visual. Sometimes I just lie here and ache, thinking of the curve of her cheek, the warmth of her skin, the way she smelled. I even miss the hospital, the shared sense of camaraderie, of eye-rolling at new medical staff and the chance to lay in bed with her at least once and hold her.

Sometimes I project thoughts to her. I have never spoken out loud, not really. But some nights I lay there, hand outstretched, praying hard that I'll feel something, anything like her little hand on mine. Once or twice I imagined I felt something, but it wasn't very solid and could have simply been the tingling in my hand as it dangled over the edge of the bed. She comes in dreams sometimes. The last one had her turning up in a very out-of-context way, making sure she had my attention and saying, "I love you," before she disappeared. Her face was changing and she seemed to be struggling to hold the image I know to be her. She wanted to make sure I recognized her, that I knew she loved me. My waking mind yearns, though, to have its own sense of her, to hear her, to feel her.

I feel what it means to have time pass without her, to realize what it means to have someone for ten and a half years and only ten and a half years. Her sister will turn ten in December. By next year at this time, she will have outlived her sister. I don't know how I feel about that exactly. I know it is unsettling. And I know that I fiercely wish I could know her at eleven, at twelve, at twenty-five. That's what I planned, you know, when she was diagnosed. I thought we'd at least make it to twenty-five.

I like to think -- to say -- that I'm coping very well with her death. In the dark of the night, I'm not as sure that is true. I think I'm just a good liar, a good actress, so good that I even believe that I am okay. My life goes on, yes. There are amazing moments, yes. I want to keep living, yes. But the bone deep ache of her absence -- that is not fading. I don't think it ever will. I will continue to grow around it, but it will never be erased, never be mended. I will wake up every day and know that I have three beautiful daughters, but that I only get to see two of them, hug two of them. I don't know if I ever really knew what ache was before.

Jasmine. I miss you so.

Dionysos sent this song via Launchcast:

Kate Bush
This Woman's Work

Pray God you can cope.
I stand outside this woman's work,
This woman's world.
Ooh, it's hard on the man,
Now his part is over.
Now starts the craft of the father.

I know you have a little life in you yet.
I know you have a lot of strength left.
I know you have a little life in you yet.
I know you have a lot of strength left.

I should be crying, but I just can't let it show.
I should be hoping, but I can't stop thinking

Of all the things I should've said,
That I never said.
All the things we should've done,
That we never did.
All the things I should've given,
But I didn't.

Oh, darling, make it go,
Make it go away.

Give me these moments back.
Give them back to me.
Give me that little kiss.
Give me your hand.

(I know you have a little life in you yet.
I know you have a lot of strength left.
I know you have a little life in you yet.
I know you have a lot of strength left.)

I should be crying, but I just can't let it show.
I should be hoping, but I can't stop thinking

Of all the things we should've said,
That were never said.
All the things we should've done,
That we never did.
All the things that you needed from me.
All the things that you wanted for me.
All the things that I should've given,
But I didn't.

Oh, darling, make it go away.
Just make it go away now.

This song makes me think of the movie "She's Having A Baby," which was released in 1988, but became a movie that meant even more when I was pregnant with Jasmine in 1992/93. Fucking hell. You'd think that by now these kinds of nights would be past.

Some of you know that Suzanne Sterling's CD, Bhakti, was one that helped me through Jasmine's death. She was teaching at this camp, and I was really looking for a chance to thank her for that work and for the support it gave me. Most of the week she was surrounded by people and I really wanted it to be a private moment. I had no idea how I would deal, and my heart chakra was so wide open for most of the camp that I was sure I would cry. At the talent show, she sang "The River," which was really one of the most important songs for me. I was so choked up, singing was out of the question. Jeez, I can only imagine how I'm going to handle the Coldplay concert. (Note to self: remember the tissues.)

Finally on Saturday, my chance came during my last affinity group meeting. I excused myself for a moment and went to talk to Suzanne. First of all she floored me by knowing my name. We had no prior interaction, I wasn't in her path and she must have only heard my name in passing. Impressive. I drew a breath and told her. Told her about Jasmine dying, told her how her music had helped both me and my mom keep it together on those half hour drives to and from the hospital. I had tears in my eyes when I was done and I was a little nervous about how she would react. I looked into her heart-shaped face and saw that she had tears in her eyes too. She thanked me for telling her and we hugged. Not only is the music beautiful and amazing, so is Suzanne. If you don't have her CD, please, buy it. I swear to all that's holy, you will not regret it.

When the chiropractor makes an adjustment that is painful, he says, "That was a stinger," in a somewhat dissonantly cheerful manner. Because he knows it's going to hurt, but he knows that ultimately, he's making an adjustment that hurts for a time, but puts things back to right.

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For a long time we have known that at least part of Jasmine needs to go to the ocean. We took her to Jamaica intending to leave ashes, but it wasn't right. It was the ocean, but it wasn't the right ocean. And it wasn't time yet. But when I looked into that journal yesterday, I realized the time is right now. Jasmine wants to go home, she wants to go to the ocean. I think we need to take her this summer. I feel sad, but resolved. That moment yesterday was one of those that leave no room for question. And that was a stinger.

I spent some time updating Jasmine's memorial site tonight. She is very much on my mind these past few days.

One thing I'd particularly like to direct you towards -- my friend Stew sent us an mp3 of the song he wrote for Jasmine's memorial. It is beautiful -- I'll let it speak for itself. It's on her memorial page. If you like his stuff -- and you should, because it's fabulous -- then go here and download more. He's very modest about his talent, but I encourage you to spam his mailbox with compliments about how wonderful and talented he is.

As I've been thinking about my support network this weekend, I really wanted to recognize you all -- those of you who read here. Therapists tend to scoff at the support offered by the online world, but I say it's because they're by and large luddites who think online communities are cold and impersonal. Every one of you has commented at least once and offered support in the healing after Jasmine's death. Every one of you has helped me this year. So thank you. Humbly and from my deepest, bloody heart.

Today I searched for "cystic fibrosis" as an interest on LiveJournal. There are communities and individuals listed, so I clicked around... and realized, as I started crying, that I have almost completely avoided the CF community since Jasmine died.

My main "beef" with the community has always been proselytizing. Every time I tried to join a CF community for support in parenting Jasmine, the issue of religion always came up, and always included someone telling me everything would be better if I were Christian. And if it wasn't that, then it was simply feeling alien because I view things like death and illness from a different perspective, largely due to my religious beliefs. I'm sure other parents like me are out there -- parents who have a more universal approach to God and maybe some alternative beliefs about spirituality in general -- but I never heard them in those forums, so I stopped going.

Then when Jasmine died, I reached out to grieving forums. That didn't work either, for much the same reasons. I felt sorry for parents who felt that they had somehow displeased God and that losing their child was thier punishment. I also felt like my circumstance was different because Jasmine had a chronic illness. We had been thinking about the possibility of her death ever since her diagnosis, which means when it happened, we reacted very differently than someone who suddenly and/or violently loses a child. So I gently disengaged because I didn't particularly feel supported or at home. And I've been okay for the most part, working through things on my own with friends and family.

But today I looked on LJ for whatever reason and found myself close to sobbing as I read the words of people still very much in the throes of fighting CF, mostly young people. I spent some time updating the journal on Jasmine's memorial site and updating her friends list with some of them. In some ways, denying CF as part of my life is denying Jasmine as part of my life. And as much as directly dealing with it is behind me, I can't pretend that I don't care about it or feel a connection with people who live with it.

I no longer have any doubt at all that Jasmine is near, one of the greatest gifts of a weekend full of great gifts. My dilemma now is figuring out whether she's just letting me know she's near or whether there's something else I need to hear.

On Friday night, I created a ritual to celebrate where Thalia, Ivy and I have been and to look forward to where we're going. I asked Thalia to aspect Ariadne and she agreed. Asking Ariadne to join us had two purposes -- one, to know Her -- to really experience Her outside of trance and outside of the stories that seem so anemic. The second was to ask her about the path ahead of the three of us -- revisiting camp in a few months, working Ivy through the first year of study and so on. After Ariadne came, I was compelled to ask Her a question that in retrospect seems a little selfish, though I know it was not perceived that way by my sisters. I asked Her if she had encountered Jasmine. "She dances in your eyes," she said in her weirdly accented and throaty voice that was not at all Thalia's. In fact, I was somewhat afraid to ask the question because I was afraid that Thalia's desire to comfort would override anything Ariadne had to offer, but Her response was so unlike anything Thalia would say, that I have no doubt who was speaking. She touched my forehead and said, "She is very near, always with you." Tears welled in my eyes and I danced away. Why this message would soothe me when so many others have not, I can't explain, but I am grateful.

The next night, Saturday, we decided to pack some of our stuff in preparation for an early departure on Sunday. I went out to the truck to grab some bins, and folded the back seats up to make room for the full bins. As I pulled the seat bottom down, a folded piece of cardstock caught my eye. The message? "I love you!" Hands shaking, I opened it. I knew it was from Jasmine -- she had made it right before she died. It had not been there when I pushed the seat up. Jeff tells me he had put the card behind the seats before we left, but I don't think it was an accident that it slipped to where it was, message loud and clear. I took it inside to the cabin and showed it to Thalia and Ivy and no more than thirty minutes later the next message came .

In the whirlwind of Friday night's activities, Thalia lost a silk bag that she stores a particular necklace in. Looking for it, she dug deeply in her suitcase, only to pull out one of the white stones my Illinois covenmates made for Jasmine's memorial service. She had no idea it was in there. It was stamped with a purple dragonfly. If you were there, you probably have one.

When I put these things together with the visit last week and all the other things that have happened, I can't write it off as coincidence or wishful thinking. Jasmine is here. I am now looking for ways to have a more meaningful exchange with her.

I had a weird... experience last night. It's funny because last week in my book discussion/study circle, a question about psychic experience was asked. I said that I've had experiences that I knew in the moment were psychic, but later talked myself out of believing. Last night falls into that category.

I pushed myself past my point of tired and stayed up till 2 AM. This night shift thing with Jeff is shit -- I never get to sleep in -- so I knew I was making a dumb choice, but there it was. I resolutely turned off the tv at 2 AM, following an interesting episode of Angel and rolled over. I started to doze, but woke up when I sensed one of the girls come into the bedroom and stand at Jeff's side of the bed. Too short to be Gab, too tall to be Nina (who hasn't figured out how to get out of the crib yet anyway), I blinked in the darkness and responded automatically.

"What's wrong, honey?"

She shifted. I sat up and peered into the shadows made deeper and blurrier by the fact that I can't see a damned thing without my contact lenses.

I tried to focus on her and asked again, "What's wrong?"

I scooted closer to the edge of the bed where she was standing, only to realize no one was there. I sat up and swung my legs over the side, groping backwards for my glasses. Nothing. A cold sense of Jasmine.

The figure had been standing on the side of the bed where we keep her altar and ashes, ashes in a box that I had caressed before going to bed. Was it Jasmine? If so, she must be going crazy trying to get through to me, knowing that I believe it for a split second and then talk myself out of it in the cold light of day. Why does it never occur to me to directly address her when I feel her?

"At the end of the day, we can endure much more than we think we can." Frida Kahlo

There isn't a day that goes by that I don't think of her. Someone says something, or I see something, or hear something... and it all comes rushing in. My daughter, the first from my womb, my beautiful girl is gone, gone for real and I will never again see those gorgeous sea-grey eyes or feel her hand slip into mine as we walk across a parking lot. Everything that seems wrong or annoying pales to insignificance and for a moment, the world is water colored. Unreal and washed out.

I can't predict what will bring it, but today in particular there were three things. The first, that damned song by Michelle Branch -- "Everywhere." I was eating lunch at the gym after filling out all the paperwork and there it was. A simple thing, a song, a video. But my eyes stung and I thought about that same video playing on TV right before we turned off the ventilator.

The second, a bright yellow flyer cooked up by Gab and Deeda's girls, Lou and Rice for the Witchie Chicks. I smiled, thinking of the play on "Dixie Chicks" and then remembered the four of them last year before Jasmine died. When we visited in December, they dressed up in black and called themselves the Goth girls. I joked with Jasmine and Lou about educating them about Goth music rather than Goth attire so they wouldn't be posers. Jasmine was a Glamour Witch for her last Halloween. As soon as I saw that flyer, a vision of her in that costume came so strongly I could have made myself believe she was in that house with the other girls, getting ready to put on a show. The strength of that made it that much harder when I realized she wasn't in that house and never would be again. Still, my eyes kept going back to the flyer and I smiled a little thinking of her joining them in spirit if not in flesh.

The third was the end of the movie, Frida. Actually, the whole concept of being trapped in a body -- when Frida says, "Burn this Judas of a body," I got it. I remembered Jasmine's tears at the end, her anguish over being stuck in the hospital so many days of her life while other kids could run and play. And the very last scene -- the painting of the bed burning with her sick body in it, overlaid by this quote, "I hope the exit is joyful and I hope never to return." Yes. I watched the bed burn, took in the beatific smile on her face and thought of Jasmine's body at the end. She never asked us to burn her body, but I think she would have empathized with Frida Kahlo.

So I sat here and wept a little and felt good for doing so. I realized that most of my moments of deep grief have been alone -- they have to be because it's the only way I can really let go. And I thought that maybe this night shift Jeff is working is a good thing, at least for a little while. Some time to weep, knowing that when I want to be held later, he will be there.

Anyway, I just wanted to say... not a day goes by -- not one -- that I don't think about her and wish I could share something with her. Not a day that I don't wonder what she would be doing if she hadn't died. Not a day.

Warning: Image Heavy Entry

A photo collection of Jasmine's last year:
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Jasmine Leigh Van Steenberg
June 9, 1993 ~ February 14, 2004</center>

My friend Robbin wrote a nice entry about Jasmine -- thank you so much, my oldest friend. Thank you as well to my other friends (including my DL & LJ communities) who have emailed me with support and offerings... I couldn't have gotten through this year without you.

Today is one week from the anniversary of Jasmine's death. We have spent a lot of time lately trying to decide how to handle the fact that she died on Valentine's Day. Do we not celebrate Valentine's Day? Do we move it to a different date? And whatever the outcome of that issue, what do we want to do on the year anniversary? Have a somber day or something else?

I was sitting in a fast food restaurant the other day and "The Lion King" was playing on a TV in the play area. That was Jasmine's first favorite movie. She had a little Simba lion that she carried around everywhere, and in the beginning of the movie, when Rafiki holds Simba up for all the animals to behold, she would stand in front of the TV and hold her own baby Simba up for all to behold. I can't tell you how many times we watched that movie -- I know all the songs and every line by heart. So I was sitting there, thinking about how that movie deals with death and wondering if it affected Jasmine's philosophy when it occurred to me that a great way to acknowledge the anniversary of Jasmine's passing would be to celebrate her life. To do as many of her favorite things as possible and tell stories about her. To remember her and help our girls remember her.

I waited a few days and called Gab and Jeff into the bedroom night before last. I asked them what they wanted to do on the anniversary and neither really had any strong ideas. I shared my idea and asked what they thought -- they liked it. We even started sharing stories at that time, thinking of all the things we could do. If this becomes a tradition, it will be one of the only ways Nina will ever know her sister. We haven't discussed inviting other people to participate, but I think it might happen naturally.

Last night, perhaps because of all this planning, I had a dream about Jasmine. In my dream, she had been in a coma for the past year. She woke up and was able to breathe well unassisted. We were overjoyed and tearful and I held her for a long time, telling her how it had been while she wasn't part of our life. She smiled her Jasmine smile and was ready, as usual, to pick up her life after a hospital visit. We went to a camp, where she spent a lot of time doing activities with a peer group. I remember sitting next to her and telling her she had slept right through her 11th birthday, that her 12th was more than halfway here. She was flirting with a boy somewhat, so I had a little jolt of baby-growing-up-angst about that. For whatever reason, her doctors didn't know she had woken up. We were excited because, we told her, she was obviously doing well enough to wait for another transplant if that's what she needed. Then I started making vows of what I would do to prevent her from getting sick -- keep her out of school, be more vigilant about hand washing, keeping her away from germs, make sure she was never late with a single med... and realized that I was putting her in a bubble. And I knew I couldn't do that, even scared as I was of losing her.

I woke up feeling grateful for the chance to hold her again, even if only in my dreams. My first realization was that it was so completely impossible -- her body is in ashes on my dresser. And I felt disappointed. As if it would be possible anyway. Miss you, dragonfly.

The tattoo is a design Jeff created last year while Jasmine was dying. He wove her name into it -- I'm messing with Photoshop to see if I can find a way to make it more obvious. It's hard to see if you don't know where to look.</p>

We're in the countdown to the year anniversary. To say I've been thinking about Jasmine a lot would be an understatement. With everything else that's going on, I've been on emotional overload for much of the month of January. We have our first appointment with the marriage counselor on the 22nd. I am afraid she is going to try to chalk all this up to grief, and that's not it. For certain the grief has exacerbated things greatly, but the issues we are struggling with predate Jasmine's death. Some of them predate Jasmine, period. I hope she gets that better in person than she did on the phone, or we won't be working with her long. Anyway, that's not what this entry is about.

For the past year, the presence of the medical world has been pretty much absent from our lives. It's been a weird adjustment, not having all those doctors, nurses and therapists around. A good thing. When I went to camp this past fall, I had an opportunity to chose a tarot image that attracted me. The one I chose showed a somewhat androgynous creature breaking free/falling from a tree. It looked like a mix of the Tower card and the Hanged Man card. It felt perfect. When I had to articulate why I chose the card, I said that it reminded me of what our family was going through -- simulataneously falling and breaking free.

Recently I have been feeling grateful for Jasmine's death. Typing that sentence is hard because I feel guilty for feeling grateful. I feel like I have to rush to explain. It's not that I wanted Jasmine to die -- of course I'd rather have her with me -- but I am grateful that neither she nor we have to fight cystic fibrosis anymore. Whatever I may know about death, I absolutely know that she is not in a body with sick lungs anymore. That burden is gone. The image of her flying free -- the dragonfly -- is strong and true. As much as I miss her, I would much rather that be her reality than being trapped in a sick body.

This weekend Jeff took the girls to my parents' house. I took the opportunity to clean off the top of my dresser, which serves as Jasmine's altar. I am ashamed to say it had gotten a little cluttered, but that won't happen anymore. I made it clear that it is an altar, sacred space for Jasmine, and not to be profaned with piles of money, receipts or any other pocket debris. Here's a picture:

We have more things to add to it, but for now, it's her place.

On Friday, I read through last year's journal entries at this time. It was wrenching to remember how I felt then, feel how I feel now... miss Jasmine so much. Everywhere I go, still, I see things that I know she would have loved and I want to show them to her. I laugh at things she would have laughed at and want to laugh with her. I cry remembering how tired she was of being sick all the time and am grateful she was released.

A friend of mine in St. Louis has a mother-in-law who does psychic work with those who've passed. In response to my wish list, she sent me an email about connecting with Jasmine. In the email, she described Jasmine as dancing in a meadow of flowers with long, dark, flowing hair. I was a little confused by that the first time I read it, to be honest, because Jasmine's hair was none of those things at any point in her life. Dark, maybe, but that's about it. When I read the email, I thought about "What Dreams May Come" and how everyone gets to choose their appearance in that afterlife. That movie actually helped me bring language to a lot of my beliefs around death, but I digress. There was more to the email than that, but I mention that part for reasons that will be momentarily apparent.</p>

Yesterday, Jeff and I decided to go to Michael's to buy frames for the prints I've been lugging around for years. We pulled the prints out of their storage tubes and began to separate out those we were framing. Jeff pulled one out and unrolled it -- I didn't recognize it, but from what I could see of the bottom half, I could tell it had a Southwestern theme. Definitely NOT my style -- I may live here, but I'm not a huge fan of Southwestern art or decor. I wondered where it came from and had no memory of seeing it prior to yesterday morning. I sat it aside and went through the rest. A few minutes later, curiosity got the better of me and I picked it up again, completely unfurling it. This is what I saw:

It's called "She Dreams in the Rhythm of the Waves" and the artist is Patricia Wyatt.

I don't know how well you can see, but her choker has a dragonfly on it. And she definitely has long, dark, flowing hair. Isn't that interesting? How did she come to be in our house?

On Christmas Eve, I whispered to Jeff that it didn't seem fair that I should have my period and Christmas at the same time. Christmas is an emotionally charged, stressful time for most people anyway, but this is our first without Jasmine, and so it feels like a double whammy.

I can't help but keep thinking recently that this time last year was the beginning of the end. I know logically that Jasmine was having rejection issues before we left on our vacation; I know she might have contracted whatever infection ultimately killed her prior to leaving for Arizona, but I still can't get it out of my heart that coming here somehow was the catalyst -- that somewhere along the line, this is where it started.

I don't mean in the sense of actually coming into contact with whatever virus caused her lungs to harden and stop functioning -- I mean in the sense that this is when it started. She got sick. We had one of the happiest holidays of our lives and then, towards the end, she began to fail. We knew it; we considered leaving early to take her to the hospital in St. Louis. But we wanted to stay and we ignored some of the warning signs. We made an appointment to get her in to the doctor as soon as we landed in St. Louis, and that's where it took off.

After our holiday in the Southwest, Jasmine was home for about four or five days, most of the time sleeping. The rest of her last weeks were spent in the hospital, mostly in ICU. There were new toys she hardly touched and new clothes she never wore. New bedding that she got to see, but didn't ever sleep in.

So I can't help but remember, in the midst of all the fun times with our friends and family, that this time will be stained by that for some years to come, that in about six weeks, we will be staring at the first year anniversary of Jasmine's death. It doesn't seem real, and while the feeling that someone will call and say this was all a huge misunderstanding and Jasmine is waiting for us in some hospital room somewhere has faded, it's still there. I dream about it sometimes, then wake up and remember.

This is my catharsis -- for most of the week, I have been upbeat and haven't allowed myself time to really stop and think about what's missing -- who's missing. I have laughed with friends and family, I have played with my children, I have done whatever it takes to keep myself from stopping to reflect. With the possible exception of Jeff, I don't know if anyone else is aware of what's beneath the surface. I like to think I'm a pretty good actress, but maybe I'm not fooling anyone.

Last night we had a great dinner together with Deeda's family -- roast beast and ham with trimmings and I made cranberry-apple pie and New York cheesecake for dessert. We sat around the fire awhile and then Deeda & Co. gave into the sleep deprivation that seems to be part and parcel of the night before Christmas and left us to rest. We're going out again tonight and I will have another opportunity to laugh and forget, for a time, the feeling of my heart exploding in my chest.

When everyone leaves, and it's all over (which is coming up tomorrow), I wonder what will happen. I have kept a candle burning for Jasmine since last night, will continue to burn a candle for her until February 14. I don't know what else to do -- I miss her so much. Last night we had a dinner conversation about her -- because as much as we fought over her eating, Jasmine loved a family gathering with food -- and were reminiscing about how alike Jasmine and I were, and how alike Gab and Jeff are. I haven't written about it much, because it feels a little like favoritism, but it's true -- part of what I miss is the little person I most related to. We would have been such great friends when the Mom Time was over. I mourn that lost opportunity.

I miss my dragonfly. I hold in my heart those images of the dragonflies I've seen in the past year -- because today of all days this year, I need to believe that those dragonflies were sent by her. There are two encounters I especially hold dear -- the first was from the trip we made when we decided to move out here -- of a short interlude in a river cove, hunkered down in the cool water, eye to eye (eyes?) with a brilliant blue dragonfly that was perched on a piece of river grass. The second was a field full of dragonflies at Samhain camp -- they floated in the air like dandelion fluff, hundreds of them, saying farewell. I haven't seen a live one since.

Anyway... that's what the holiday has been for me these past few days. This year was great, but I can never have the one thing I most want -- Jasmine back, intact and whole.

Jasmine, I send my love to you on the flame of this candle and always, always, in the flame of my heart.