Angel Devi Rose

Writing about Asha Veil brings up my own feelings about my final miscarriage at age fifty in early December 2009.  When I write about Asha, I begin to cry from the deep well of a pregnancy loss I never really mourned.  For myself, these losses have carved a space of grief in me that all griefs spring from, forever. I think I am also connecting this to Richard Veil and the unimaginable grief of losing his wife and his precious little daughter.  I must come to these places in order to write Asha's story.

I was only briefly pregnant when I was 50.  I had a pregnancy scare a few months before and was frightened to tell my partner at the time; I had two positive pregnancy tests, but the second was a fainter line and I felt the pregnancy was not going to take, though I hoped.  I did not know what I would do.  It was a very shadowed time in my life where I felt that I would not be loved and supported in what would likely be a difficult pregnancy with attendant health problems.  I kept it a secret; I remember literally curling around myself in bed, as if trying to protect my womb and hold the baby.   I wish with all my heart I had told the father of this baby, but I was afraid of him since the earlier pregnancy scare, though I would never have admitted this to myself then.  I miscarried alone and told everyone I was having a very heavy period and needed to rest.  After that loss, my PMS, already legendary, became apocalyptic.

I have had two miscarriages other than that one, and a stillbirth.  All the miscarried babies were honored with names: Charles August (CG's and my baby, so wanted and so loved), and John Thomas (first miscarriage when I was 25, a very deep loss that really affected me and my husband).  My stillborn son, whom I saw briefly and had baptized, was named James Alan.  James I knew was a boy; the other babies were named for what I sensed.

I feel strongly that the baby I lost at 50 was a girl, and I have finally decided to honor and name her, so I have chosen the name Angel Devi Rose.  I think that is a pretty name, and roses figured largely in my time with her birth father. I also used to think sometimes that he looked like an angel. Devi is the name of the great mother-goddess, with many faces, aspects, and incarnations, and she is worshipped all over India.  This week, I will choose and plant a miniature yellow rose for her.  I have roses in my garden for all the pregnancies I lost: a delicate white-pink Angel's Wing rose for John Thomas, a miniature pink rose (unknown name) for Charles August, and an Angel Face rose for James Alan.

Yellow roses are also an important symbol for her birth papa, and so this will be to honor him also, even though he will not know about this.

I will plant Angel's rose in a nice container and put it next to the garden statue I have of a sleeping fairy. I might get a little angel statue for her flower pot.  It is all I can do, and I think it will put a little closure on one of the saddest times in my life.  It was a lonely loss, and yet I am glad there are still things I can do to honor this brief life.

This time of writing about Asha Veil and all the attendant, terrible losses is holding a mirror up to my own, and I think, though deeply emotional, it is a process where many old griefs can be honored.