I wrote the story about Sister P after a coffee date with LJ and before I saw that PaleMother (who is this ghostly Palemother? Palemother, write to me!) had left a note on the Daily News post at the top of the screen. The date has caused confusion in the past–it’s simply the only way I know in Blogger to keep a post at the top of the screen. I wanted a space to let people know when I updated the Lost and Found for the day. Hence the strange date way off in the future.

This is what she wrote:

Hi Mel,

I’m having a sci fi moment.

Just stopped in to check up on you 🙂 … for some reason my bookmark was messed up and it linked me to an old post instead of the current front page. So when I clicked over to Home, I checked the dates at the top to be sure I was in the right place … For some reason the date at the top of this post is August 14th, 2008.

Blink, Blink.

Hmmm.

For a minute there, I thought I’d hit my head.

🙂 Just for fun, I checked the numerology of this date-out-of-nowhere for you. 😉

08 + 14 + 2008 = 5

Five is the number of a particular Tarot card, The Heirophant (the link provides the full interpretation):

http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/learn/meanings/hierophant.shtml

“Having created a solid foundation on which to build his future, the Fool is struck with a sudden fear. What if everything he’s worked for is taken away? Is stolen, or lost, or destroyed or vanishes? Or what if it is just not good enough? In a panic, he heads into a holy place where he finds the Hierophant, a wise teacher and holy man. Acolytes kneel before the man, ready to hear and pass on his teachings. The Fool tells the Hierophant his fears, and asks how he can be free of them.

“There are only two ways,” says the Hierophant sagely, “Either give up that which you fear to lose so it no longer holds any power over you, or consider what you will still have if your fear comes to pass. After all,” the Hierophant continues, “if you did lose all you’d built, you would still keep the experience and knowledge that you’ve gained up to this point, wouldn’t you?”

This surprisingly pragmatic advise releases the Fool from his fear, and he is able exit out of the sanctuary and face the world’s challenges once again.”

Sort of creepy, right? It was left there prior to posting anything about my trip to Sister P. Literally–I was writing the first post and that came into my inbox. So tarot cards aren’t exactly psychic readings but still…

Beyond that, I think that fear describes me to a T. But that’s another post.

I hope the two posts this week have gotten you somewhat in the mood for Halloween and somewhat in the mood for a lot of second-guessing from me as I head into dropping a couple ten-thousand on fertility treatments. Just kidding….er… I’m still gathering some last thoughts on Sister P and prophecies.

I loved Carolyn Hax’s response. I’m someone who always needs to know about Plan B if Plan A isn’t going to happen and even I thought her reasoning was sound. Not only sound, but extremely thoughtful and sensitive.

Carolyn Hax had two interesting questions and answers today in the Washington Post. The first was a couple who went in for preliminary fertility testing and learned that the wife needed a hysterectomy “ASAP” (the husband’s term). Carolyn cautioned him to get a second opinion and, moreover, told him what not to do–minimize her grieving–and what to do–admit that he is mourning alongside her.

The second question relates to one of the pieces of advice Hax gives in the first answer: “don’t try to minimize [the loss of your ability to reproduce] with, ‘It’s okay, we can adopt.’ Everyone knows about adoption. There will be a time where it’s appropriate to signal your willingness to explore it, if you are in fact willing, but don’t present it in a way that suggests you see it as a mitigating factor.”

Carolyn:

I’ve noticed that you frequently say, “Everyone knows about adoption,” which is why you never advise bringing it up or advise it yourself.

But the thing is, everyone knows about second opinions, too, and that didn’t stop you from advising one. Your refusal to recommend adoption signals that there’s something wrong with talking about it, when in reality adoption is a wonderful thing that should be discussed.

“Everyone Knows”

Actually, I don’t see the two as an apt comparison. Everyone may know about second opinions, but people in the throes of an upsetting diagnosis sometimes do lose that thought in the storm. Also, the recommended treatment involves a hysterectomy “ASAP.” They can’t proceed, wait till the dust has settled and then remember the option of a second opinion. It’s now or never.

The adoption conversation, on the other hand, can wait until the couple is in a better frame of mind for it, at which point they will think of it themselves, without the assist from well-meaning spectators.

I have the benefit of seeing what people have posted here for almost a decade, which is that the “Well, you can always adopt” comment is perceived by couples who are struggling with infertility as unnecessary at best, and at worst offensive.

People don’t like even the perception of being judged on their reproductive choices, and stating the obvious about adoption makes couples feel judged either as too dense to have thought of it themselves, or as too close-minded or genetically self-absorbed to be interested, which is how a lot of people really do (unfairly) view couples who rule out adoption. Yes, adoption is wonderful; it should be discussed — by the people who’d be adopting.

Your thoughts on Hax’s response?

I’m sorry! The post was getting too long and the book tour questions had to get sent out and it seemed like a good stopping point and… Can I just go on record that I’m massively into wizarding (I told you I’d find a use for it, Bea) and it freakin’ takes over everything else in my life. I barely have time to stress about the fact that I don’t seem to be ovulating this month. It’s just wizarding–day and night, day and night…

If you’re reading this and you haven’t read An Ooky Spooky Post, Part One, stop and back up. None of this will make sense unless you read the post before this one.

Sister P allowed me to write down the names of four people who had died that I would like to speak to through her. I took the tiniest scrap of paper from the back of my notebook and wrote in barely legible letters in a font that would put a size 8 to shame. But I didn’t just write in tiny print. I wrote the names transliterated into Hebrew (so, not their Hebrew names which would naturally be spelled with Hebrew letters, but their names in English shoved into Hebrew letters. Sort of a hard concept to convey to the non-Jewy Jew, but go with me on this). Why? Because I’m not a natural believer. And if she had come out with the names, I would have simply thought that she had some device set up that allowed her to see over my shoulder. But I could assume that if I wrote out nonsense–in a foreign language, no less–and she came up with these names… Well. I folded up the paper as small as possible and handed the spit-ball-esque paper to Sister P.

She rubbed it between her fingers while she spoke and she wove my conversations with those four people through details from my past.

I was born too quickly. My mother is probably nodding if she’s reading this. I was born so quickly that my father didn’t have time to park the car. My mother came into the hospital and dilated to 10 cm within a matter of a few minutes. By the time my father got up to labour and delivery, he was told that he had missed the entire birth. Oh, and congratulations–you have a baby girl.

Sister P explained: I was born that quickly because I didn’t actually need to be here. I had made a completion in my last life and I had been released from the life cycle. I chose to return to earth and was born that quickly to slip into the world under what she called a “god sign.” She explained that I chose to return not for my own personal gain, but to help others. She said others would benefit because I had chosen to return to earth (aren’t y’all breathing a huge sigh of relief right now that I’m here?).

My uncle came forward to speak to me; the first person on my list. Sister P spoke for him. He wanted to apologize. He was sorry that he left so quickly without saying goodbye. He knew that I always had trouble with goodbyes and he was worried that it was because of the way he had died so suddenly. My uncle died of a heart attack when I was nine and he was the first person that I lost suddenly; without warning. I still have trouble with goodbyes at thirty-three.

She told me about a relationship that I had during college. She told me I had dated the man for two years and our relationship was so intense that when she looked at our relationship as she peered into my past, she couldn’t tell what was him and what was me. His life had bled so completely into my own.

She told me there was a night after I got off the phone when I was crying so hard that I knelt down on the ground and started hitting the floor with the palm of my hand. And I did do this, alone in the apartment, my junior year. I never told anyone about it–including this boyfriend–until I told my sister this story after I left Sister P’s.

My cousin came forward to speak holding the left side of her head. She called herself not by the name I wrote down in transliterated Hebrew on the slip of paper, but the name that I called her. She told me that what had been in her head was now gone and I should stop mourning her because she was at peace. She died when I was in middle school from a brain tumour.

Sister P ran through a host of past problems and situations, ticking them off as proof, promising me that she had something extremely important to tell me about my future and she wanted me to believe her and take it to heart. She touched on a lost friendship, the end of my relationship with this aforementioned boyfriend, a difficult time in my family when I was 13. She told me that I needed to let go of what was happening in the moment, leave it behind in Massachusetts and move. She apologized for what I was going through in Massachusetts (as I’ve already said, I was in the center of Hell), but it was necessary for this whole return-to-earth business. “Believe it or not, you need to be going through this now so you can help people later.”

And though I don’t feel like I can speak openly about what happened in Massachusetts, I think what Sister P said is completely true. I don’t think you would have me connecting with you if not for that experience that brought something that started in college full-circle. But until I looked over my notes from Sister P tonight to write this post, I never put that together.

Not to be cryptic or anything.

My pushy Hungarian great-grandmother showed up for a visit and kept interrupting Sister P, just as she would have done in real life. She kept marveling at me and saying, “but she is just a little girl!” It is a phrase I always associate with her, the Hungarian lilt to her words: “leeeeetle geeeeerl.” My grandfather, always quiet and gentle in real life, stood next to her, saying nothing. Sister P asked if he had died recently. “This year,” I answered. He hadn’t learned how to communicate yet with the living, she explained.

This is the message that Sister P needed me to know. She said that I wasn’t put here for marriage. But I would have one and I would know he was my intended husband because he would mention that he had lived overseas when I met him. Prior to dating Josh, I dated a boy from Israel and I always wondered if he was the one. To be honest, I really didn’t want him to be the one. I wasn’t in love with him. But he had, of course, lived overseas. Still, it wasn’t something that was mentioned on the first date so I always wondered about it.

During our first date, Josh told me all about the year he spent living in Israel after college and his travels through Ireland. I went home and called my lady-when-waiting and my mother and told them both, “I met the man I’m going to marry.” And I did.

She told me to write this down. I would only have one child. It would happen when I was 30 and it would be a difficult birth as well as a difficult pregnancy. She said the complications would begin around 4 months, but if I followed my doctor’s orders, I would deliver a healthy baby. If I fought against my doctor’s orders, the baby wouldn’t live. She told me I would need to stop working towards the end.

When we were doing treatments the first time, I never believed I would be a mother, though the words I wrote down from Sister P brought me a modicum of peace at times. According to Sister P, I would have one child. She had been right about Josh and she had been right about not trying to live in Washington, D.C. proper (a long story of apartment waiting lists). Why couldn’t she be right about motherhood?

When I became pregnant with the twins, her words sent me into a panic. One child. I couldn’t even focus on the rest of the prophecy. All I could see were the words “one child.” It didn’t even occur to me that it was coming true when the hyperemesis kicked in (a difficult pregnancy is right) or
when my doctor told me to stop working and I fought him, saying that I needed to finish off the school year. Their birth, as you now know, was difficult. They were IUGR and were born prematurely at 33 weeks. I didn’t do any of the emotional prep work Sister P told me to do. I was an emotional wreck after their birth. I was 30-years-old as promised.

But we broke the prophecy, right? Because she said there would be one child. Or did she say “one pregnancy” and I wrote down “one child”? It’s obviously important and it’s not one of those things I can check on after the fact. At the same time, it’s not really important. It’s all in what you want to believe.

She told me that I would want more children and I wouldn’t get them. I would have many children pass through my life but they wouldn’t be mine. They would be other women’s children, but I would affect their lives from afar.

It makes you think twice about starting treatments sans insurance coverage. Tens of thousands of dollars for something that you go into knowing can’t work according to Sister P. Except what other choice is there with prophecies except to continue living your life and see if they come true?

It all depends on whether I want to live by a prophecy. And what I really believe.

More thoughts on prophecies to follow soon as well as what Sister P told me about changing events that will happen in the future.

Just in time for Halloween.

Jenna’s recent post about her experience with a psychic made me think of my own trip to Sister P*. When we were trying to conceive our first children, her prophecy brought me a modicum of comfort. When we were pregnant with the twins, it made me physically ill. And now, I can’t help but feel a little stifled by the notes she made me promise I would keep.

But I should probably back up to how I came to be sitting in Sister P’s cramped, lawn-ornament-filled shack…right?

A long time ago, my sister had a women’s group who got together once a month. The host chose the topic. One woman taught them how to invest money and another taught about quilting (I remember the investing money one; but the quilting one was thrown in there just to balance the sentence. Sorry, the club is part of my sister’s memories. The rest of this experience is my own).

One host brought them all to a psychic.

I have to admit that I’m not that into psychics. I’m not 100% sure I would want to know my fate. If it was good, it would obviously bring great peace along the way. Or would it? Would I ever believe the next thing on the list even if all the ones before it came true? Beyond that, if it was terrible, I would probably laugh it off in the moment, but the words would stick with me forever. This happened for a friend who was so taken with the story I’m about to tell that she drove out to see Sister P (driving, I should mention, about 14 hours one-way to the midwestern state where Sister P lives) who told her that she would struggle with money for the rest of her life and die without ever attaining the marriage or children she sought. At 36, my friend is still single, still childless, and still struggling with money. Not every prophecy is something you want to know beforehand.

My name came up during my sister’s reading. When my sister sent her then-husband to the psychic for his reading, my name came up again. My sister asked if I would want to see Sister P next time I came out to visit her. I really wasn’t sure. On one hand, I didn’t want the information, but on the other, there was a psychic who was asking about me. Overall, I was in a pretty terrible place in life during that time and it was sort of like dangling a ticket out of Hell in front of my face and then asking, “do you really want it? It may get you back to earth. It may take you somewhere far worse.” Who wouldn’t want to know if they were doomed to remain in the same cycle forever?

I went to see the psychic.

Sister P lived on a psychic compound, a metaphysical church complete with graveyard and tiny cottages reminiscent of the gingerbread houses of Oak Bluffs on Martha’s Vineyard except with less gingerbread and more faded wood. Rickety. Each cottage was one-and-a-half stories with a dilapidated porch. Sister P’s was covered with children’s toys. There were no children in sight. In fact, there were no people in sight at all. My sister took her dog with her to walk in the deserted graveyard.

I sat on the porch, shivering and wishing I had brought heavier clothes, when the door opened. Out walked a squat, greying, brown-haired woman with tight curls and glasses that gave her a look of perpetual surprise. Without speaking, she enveloped me in a hug and then simply said, “you came.”

She ushered me into the cottage, asking as she laughed to herself. “What was a nice Jewish girl like you doing at a Buddhist monastery this week?”

A few days before I left home to visit my sister, I had gone up to the Peace Pagoda in Leverett, Massachusetts, a few miles from my home. I went there probably once a week, either to sit at the pagoda and think or to speak with one of the nuns who was a friend of a friend. It’s still a place I always need to visit whenever we’re in Western Massachusetts.

I’m not usually pegged for Jewish. Latina, Middle Eastern, Italian…sure. I wear nothing that would mark me as Jewish–no religious jewelry, for instance. But I could roll with the idea that Sister P knew my heritage. My sister could have even put her up to that. But the Buddhist monastery was confusing because my sister didn’t know that I went up there at all. Only my friend Pete and the nuns knew about my visits to the Peace Pagoda.

Sister P had a lawn chair set up in the center of the room in front of a mahogany desk. She sat behind the desk and I sat down in the lawn chair. The room was packed with lawn ornaments. Hundreds and hundreds of cement lawn ornaments–on the floor, stacked on top of shelves, toppling over in piles. It was fairly dark in the room. Sister P asked me if I had brought any paper and asked me to take notes. She said she was going to go through some things in my past so I would believe her when she told me about things in my future.

And then she began.

to be continued…

*I googled her name and it came up immediately so…I’ll leave it at Sister P.