A Butterfly

 

Her name was Laurie. She would have been 41 had she lived. I lost her when she was 7. St. Jude’s couldn’t save her. Chemo, surgery and radiation couldn’t save her. Love couldn’t save her. And she was love itself.

What has that loss done to my life? Let me put it this way. I have had a lifetime of learning to let go because I don’t come by it easily. You think it was easy to hold a dying child in your arms? (She had a loose tooth.) Or to walk into the house the first time without her? Or to know that you had a lifetime of loss ahead of you?

No one took this burden from me. I have carried it as best I can, given what I’ve got.

I told her we needed some help down here, her brother and I. Sometimes we get sad. Who wouldn’t? But we have learned that there is no way getting around sorrow. You have to make friends with it, use it, profit from it.

I took a walk tonight in the land of the opposites. I saw green, green grass and beautiful flowers. What I didn’t see was how love came to me in the grass and the sky and the moon and the stars. The mystery remains intact.

 


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