I Celebrate You, Vanessa

We celebrated the Life of my daughter Vanessa tonight by eating a meal with tasty creamy sauces. Vanessa always wanted more than one salad dressing and loved a variety of rich, creamy tastes and spices in the same meal.

When we went out to eat, she would ask a million questions of a restaurant server about how things were made or what “came with” a dish before she ordered. She herself was a professional server at fine dining restaurants in her healthier days… and always honored those in the profession. She had a gifted mind and spirit with an unusual type of humor that she would express often anywhere, anytime with no shame.

Vanessa loved food and some of it probably killed her in a way. She had Crohn’s Disease, Cancer and Immune Disorder among other things. One of her best boyfriends was a French Chef. He introduced Vanessa and all of us to rich and creamy everything from Duck to Crème brûlée. I felt like this was the beginning of the end for Vanessa in terms of food and health…. (We loved him though.)

She had a really hard time with any kind of diet protocol no matter how many books I bought her. She still wanted food full of things you do not want to take in if you are trying to heal. She resisted my suggestions as more of a natural whole foods person… I was her mother. No wonder.

Her last meal was Christmas breakfast, 2016… a meal she ate with gusto and some of her favorite things (biscuits, gravy, bacon, grits…) She could not eat in 2017, the last year of her life on earth.

I speak of food because it was an important and exciting part of her life, and she loved it. She loved recipes and cooking and exotic meals. She stayed thin no matter what she ate or drank whereas I have always been eating the giant bowls of vegetables and live foods and gain weight just looking at the Crème brûlée.

She never got to completely heal her early childhood abuse, pain and trauma. How hard that is to realize when that is the work I am able to offer to everyone else in the whole world.

We know that abuse and pain is imprinted in the body and can activate disease… and again… I was her mother, not her therapist. So my suggestion and downright begging her to engage the healing and transformation process just did not work. I so wanted her to heal the past that was showing up inside her body. I know it was a “rare genetic” thing, but I believe it was the epigenetic factors that activated it all.

The western medical doctors gave her so much medicine for everything… until meds became her food, her addictions and her life. It was hard to tell if the medications helped or made her unable to heal. So much medication for everything… and then you just can’t eat….and eventually you die. And that is what happened.

It has been one year ago that she left. I will never forget those last few minutes of her life on a Thursday morning around 8:50am, September 28, 2017, when she ask me, “Mom, what are the symptoms of psychosis?”

I said, “Well psychosis is a state of mind more than symptoms…”

She didn’t like that answer. So, she asked Siri on her iphone.

“Siri what are the symptoms of psychosis? I can’t remember if Siri answered her. I do remember that she took one more breath after that and took off.

She was so incredible and smart…she knew as she was leaving her body that she was “not all here”… entering another reality or dimension, which confused her. Can you believe that Siri was the last thing she talked to as she was dying? Yes. And, that iPhone was in her hand when she died. Of course it was.

It is hard to believe that it has been a whole year. I have grieved well…cried, screamed, moaned, ate too much, drank too much… not done all the my paperwork or answered phone calls, contemplated a lot, loved more, been a better teacher and therapist.

I wonder all the time…. “Where are you Vanessa? Can you see me? Do you hear me talk to you? Are you really there as a Dragonfly or the Angel Card I keep drawing? What it is like there? Why don’t you talk to me like Billy Fingers did? You read that book The After Life of Billy Fingers two weeks before you died and it made you feel better about dying, and you knew I wanted you to talk to me like he talked to his sister, so why aren’t you talking to me like that?”

I really wish I could kiss her again…or hear her voice or see her incredible smile. Yet I am glad she is not in pain. Her body totally fell apart in the end. Jim, my husband - was by her side in every minute she needed him for that whole year of 2017… the Total parenteral nutrition (TPN), tubes, oxygen, water… cleaning… keeping everything sterile. No-one did it better than Jim. She loved and trusted you. Thank you honey. The honeysuckle spray cleaner will stay in my memory forever.

I don’t cry as much now. And, luckily I was already happy and doing my mission and purpose and passion before she died. I know about letting go, surrendering, trusting the unknown… as I have had to do this my whole life anyway and I have become an expert at it.

Yet, I will never forget you Vanessa Hope. You were only 39 years old. Your twin sister has not gotten over you yet, so watch over her please. I loved you the moment I knew you were in my womb and I will love you deeply till the end of time. I wish I could have saved you but I guess that was not my job. I sure tried.

I never told you Vanessa - but I found a book a couple of years before you died….you were writing out your astrological growth years for your life. Strangely, you stopped at 2017. I co-dependently tried to add in more years… as if I could have controlled that. Unconsciously - you knew. I must have too, and tried to change it. Was it all pre-decided and in your perfect time? I believe so. I believe it was your choice and part of your soul’s evolutionary plan in some way.

Good night my sweet daughter. Good night forevermore. I will write each year of my life as I continue to be me. Thank you for choosing me to be your mother…Thank you for telling me that I am your Soul Mate. I will never forget you and I am here receiving your love and continuing on. I do hope you are having some new adventures free from pain and suffering now… dancing and loving and being whoever you are, wherever that is….

I love you Vanessa.

And so it is.

9/28/2018