Preamble
September 22nd will mark 6 months since this sacred soul completed her life walk and continued her journey in other realms. I am called to begin sharing this as I prepare to journey to her sacred site in ceremony and reverence.
Doing anything else seems easier than the effort it has taken to sit down and start writing this part of our story. This picks up where the last FaceBook/Blog post left off. A deeply connected soul sister reminded me yesterday (really over a month ago now)…write this all down. While the feelings and the memories are still new with you. These words may come to help someone else and ultimately, they may also help you in your healing.
I’ve also grappled with sharing this because it is so deeply intimate and personal. It is the story of the most sacred journey of life. For my family, for the circle around us, the ones who leaned in closest to us please know I tell this story with the goal of honoring the gift of this walk we took together. This part of the story where many different moving pieces were held creating the spiral of life…ensuring we were all held up together…arm in arm.
“…. we go inward to tend closely to the final stages of this journey. We ask for your continued prayers and for your patience as we will need time to gather ourselves before we are able to reach out in the days and weeks ahead…”
Welcome to this sacred journey of witnessing, honoring, loving and learning…so we begin….…
When I posted the notes on FB to ask for prayers urgently, the medical team had rushed Mikaela out of the room down for a CAT scan and then an MRI. They were gone for more than an hour. She should have come out of the ROCK (sp?) paralytic by that time. They had just performed the tracheotomy and we were all delighted to simply see her sweet face without the tube and apparatus in her mouth.
Then the waiting began. Mala in hand, focused on prayer, I sat in a chair where her bed had been, encouraging my boys to also pray. Calling Bob back to the hospital and then we waited…waited…waited. When the doctors had finally come in, Bob and Michael had joined us. Sean and Keenaan to my left, Bob and Michael across from me, the doctors on my right. Me still in my chair after a short and somewhat panicked trip downstairs to find earth to stand upon, grounding and smudging myself.
This was my effort to manage the fear and sheer panic that had enveloped my entire being. I thank every power of the universe for Sean who went with me and my sweet boy who showed up for the most important part…the hug and holding…the 3 of us holding each other with her spirit and being in our center.
Okay back to the room. In came our Neuro-intensivist and with her a brain surgeon. Then she began to speak, in the ways good doctors with a heart know how to do when hard things are happening. This woman, this doctor, she won my respect that day in ways words can never express. She began to explain. It didn’t all sink in. They put her in the CAT scan, then the MRI because she was looking for every possible option to help save Mikaela. There was the tiniest bit of blood flow to her brain, despite the swelling and there was a 2% chance (I think that was the %) that they could save her. Put another way, I think they said that there was a 98% chance she wouldn’t get through this. (Things have faded fast in 6 months) My first response was…do it, do anything you can to save my child. They didn’t move. What they had really said hadn’t sunk in. I wasn’t understanding, mostly because I didn’t want to know what they were saying. The looks on their faces…doctors become somewhat expressionless in these situations as part of how they manage and cope with delivering horribly shitty news. (Respect them like crazy…couldn’t do what they do) So she explained it again and then I started to understand. The %’s and the situation. I was still trying to ‘understand’ so said, “I’m going to ask you a hard question” and then proceeded…”do either of you have kids?” The surgeon said yes. I asked, “If you were in my shoes, what would you do?” Yes, I asked because these people know this shit far better than me and they have dealt with it for years (in most cases) and I was already petrified, trying to hold it together, worried like crazy about my child…I needed someone who was solid, grounded and rational to answer my damn question. He was kind and honest. The thing I got from his response was that I was never going to get my girl back again, even if we saved her ‘life.’ She wasn’t going to be my Saajeda Jzu Jzu anymore, not like we knew her. I looked at both of the doctors, then to my son lying on the floor in shock and tears, my husband crouched on the floor devastated and back at the doctors again. I shook my head no and said we can’t do that to her. Nothing else, we have to let her go and we cannot put her through anything else. We have to let her go. Then I looked at the ceiling and I screamed ‘why have you forsaken me again? ….why have you taken my other Saajeda???’
I remember asking Michael to take care of Keenaan. I remember her doctor and I sobbing and holding each other. I remember that feeling. That feeling that is only devastation and pure grief, a pain that no words can describe. Grief is such a powerful, visceral emotion and there seems like no words to really describe how it can touch the depth and breadth of our being. In ways we cannot ever imagine or feel from anything else that touches our lives. Once we had tried to ‘somewhat’ compose ourselves from the wrecking ball that hit our lives, her doctor said…”we will bring her up.”
I can’t tell you how it all felt because as I write this the deepest of sorrow washes over me just like I was standing in that room again. When they brought her back and all her caregivers and her family (us) stood there completely shocked by this unanticipated turn of events. This wasn’t inline with her diagnosis, this wasn’t part of the options of what could happen. Everyone seemed impacted. The people who had cared for her simply couldn’t believe this was happening. I guess in some odd way it made me feel like I wasn’t alone in my devastation. The PA, her primary doctor, her nurses, her nurse’s assistants, the RT team…we were all shocked by this devastating turn of events.
They brought her back the room and I can’t remember if I cried or if I kept up the energy to protect her. Her spirit was still tethered to her body and I was cognizant that what we did still had an impact on some portion of her energetic body(ies). That was when our lives were forever changed. When I realized that this book, that held the story of my life, our lives, from the time of her birth was coming to a close. I died with my daughter. Never to be the same. Realizing that a new book would be required, the one where life didn’t have my girl in it…not in this physical world. A world that was dimmer and quieter and a lot less fun because Mikaela wasn’t there to stir it up with her special sauce. As I do, it was time to go into action, in crisis, I manage and handle stuff because it allows me to manage the flow of emotion that could simply wash over me and then drown me.
Michael, my brother in law, came over that afternoon because he had a feeling. Kim, one of my closest friends, had planned to come over after work that day and so he was enroute and had no idea what he was walking into. I called my father and tried to tell him…poor man…he couldn’t understand me and so called the Neuro ICU unit we were in to find out what was happening. Jonathan showed up (based on my texts for prayers) and then the men called in the women. I can’t remember how Seraphina arrived…maybe from Facebook message. I texted Loren. Jonathan called Momma Blue. Michael called Katherine. Then our small, strong, amazing group showed up to guide our way through the next two days. Jonathan and Seraphina wrote the post on FB and I reviewed, made minor updates and added the picture…then posted. The nurses brought baskets of food and snacks. I’m pretty sure Sean, Keenaan, Bob and I looked like zombies wandering around wondering what the fuck just hit us. The rest of that night was mostly a blur. The women arrived, we hugged, I could barely cry, I sat exhausted and stunned in the waiting room. If I had it to do over, I would have sat with her the entire time. I know I needed the break simply because I had to figure out what we had to do next. There was no thinking watching her because all that came was tears, shock, anger, devastation.
I do remember Jonathan and I going into the room, the same thing we had done many times in the previous days, standing on either side of her and praying, doing energy work, honoring and witnessing the guardians/ancestors/angels/divine beings all around us who were holding her, us and waiting to continue to help on the journey. I looked at him and said that we had two choices on what to do…bury her at Ekone or cremate her. I didn’t want to cremate her unless we had to. This soul brother, he knew my heart and he was my witness for all of my prayers and vice versa over the weeks that led us to this point. So began the start of the plan we put into action. I had to bury my child, I needed to give her back to the mother for her physical body to live on and for her soul to soar. I also knew I wanted to have some type of ‘spiritual’ ritual on Wednesday and knew I needed help with the burial ceremony, her final rite of passage. Who needs to be here for the ritual/who will help?, asked Jonathan. Just as quickly I answered…Leslie. So it was, the anchors & guides required for creating the sacred container for this journey …were put into motion.
Musings of Gratitude & Creation 
Mikaela 💫