“The World Stops for No One” (I’ll Fly Away)

Grief is a funny thing. I guess I always thought I was immune to the “stages,” so to speak. So today, when I broke down at work and complained to my co-worker Leahh that I don’t know why this week seems to be harder than last week, she said, “Well, last week you were in denial. Now it’s sinking in.”  And I knew she was right.

At the same time, it’s not like the world stops for this stuff. You always think it will, but it doesn’t really. We’ve been plugging along with work and school; Ryley, my brave girl, didn’t want to stay home; she wanted to keep her mind off of it. So I went  to work too, thinking that when Ryan got home from Florida, we might take some time off together. But he got home, and both of our workplaces were so busy, so we just kept going in. You know, it’s funny, but people still expect to get paid, and people still expect to eat and get roofs put on their houses. We even tried and planned to take a day off together yesterday, but Ryan’s employee’s daughter went into labor and had a baby, so he had to go in and work her shift at the last minute. So I decided I might as well go in to my work too.

Ryan’s dad died during a Broncos game. And when Ryan’s plane landed, and he called me, and we talked about his dad, gone only an hour, there wasn’t much else to say. We were so drained from 24 hours of trying to get him down there. And we were so far apart. So we talked about the game. And I thought, “Are we really doing this? Are we really talking about football just an hour and a half after his dad has died?”

But that’s how life is. That’s how the entire last 10 days have been. It just keeps moving. We have moments of intense sadness, followed by moments of complete normalcy. Then we feel guilty for continuing to function. But maybe we’re just underestimating the peace of God?

In my more emotional moments, I’m still trying to wrap my head around the fact that this is reality. Ryan has to go the rest of his life…the next 60 years or so…without his dad’s input, advice, communication, prayers, or love. He’s 34, and both of his parents are gone. There’s this chasm….we know that Ron still exists in a heavenly dimension, but there is a wall of separation where we can no longer contact him. It’s comforting to know that he could not care less about this side of the chasm…about this dimension…because he is completely overtaken in his heavenly joy. But on this side, for us, there is grief and pain. It’s such a thick ceiling between here and there.

Every time Ryan gets a text, my heart drops in anxiety. This summer of ups and downs has conditioned my mind into thinking the sound of a text message means bad news. So I still think, “Oh no…Your dad…What now?” Only to be followed with, “Oh, right, the worst has already happened.”

It’s hard to think about the last few months and realize that there would be no happy ending….that all of it was leading toward this sad conclusion. All of the updates from nurses and doctors…Ryan’s week down there sitting at his dad’s side….all of the get-well cards Ryley sent her grandpa in the hospital…all of the videos we sent him of her playing the piano…all of the texting to see if this would be a good time to try and FaceTime…the happy day a few weeks ago when we received a video of him saying hello to Ryan and Ryley. His voice had been long-awaited, and we all breathed a sigh of relief. He spoke! He seemed to know us! We all thought these were baby steps down the road of recovery, to a new life. A new lease on life. He still had a ways to go, but maybe now he would live another 10-25 years with his repaired heart.

What was the point of those three months? If he was going to die anyway, then why didn’t God take him back then and spare us all the ups and downs and confusion and frustration and exhaustion and draining? I know we won’t ever know the answer to that…at least not in this “dimension.” But we do wonder what the good in it was.

“For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.” – 1 Corinthians 13:12

Ryley received a butterfly garden for her birthday, so we have been dutifully growing caterpillars for the last three weeks.

Four caterpillars…

Then in their cocoons…

Ryan transferred the cocoons to the new habitat….

Then we waited. 

This stage was supposed to last 7-10 days. On the 10th day, the cocoons looked so small and shriveled, with absolutely no sign of life. They looked really dead and kind of crispy. Our house has been pretty cold at night, so I wondered if maybe we had inadvertently chilled them to death. Ryan and I prepared Ryley for the worst…We warned her that it was not likely that they would become butterflies. She understood.

“Let’s give them a few more days before we throw them out though,” she said.

Like we would have ever thrown them out on the 11th day!

It’s a good thing we didn’t…

Butterflies!!!! On the 11th day!

It’s interesting, the timing of this whole butterfly experiment, especially since Ryan’s dad had a Master’s degree in Biology.

To think that we had declared the caterpillars dead on Day 10. And such life and beauty came forth on Day 11.

I don’t know exactly how it all correlates with Ryan’s dad’s struggle and subsequent passing, but I feel like there’s a lesson in there somewhere. His sickness was the cocoon stage, preparing him to fly away? The process needed 11 days, not 10, so we should never give up on people even when they look small and shriveled? Wait…Are we the butterflies? ;-)

Maybe we’re just supposed to remember that God is in control and that, ultimately, it’s His process in the end.

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” – 2 Corinthians 5:17