The Butterfly

She always liked butterflies. She gazed upon them as if a message were encoded on the wings. Perhaps she could identify with the living death of the cocoon, going from the short-sighted, self-centered sight of the crawler to the vast perspective vision of the flier. She had been through that. She had thought her life was over. It's visible in the old pictures -- her rigid smile under confused eyes, a panic encased in ice like an exquisite and complex, though prehistoric creature. And so it was. Her history begins only after that point.

I don't think it really hit me until I saw the little old couple sitting in the middle on folding metal chairs -- halfway back, the location that does not presume. I told the woman who I was, and she grabbed my hand. "She lived with you, didn't she? You took care of her?" We did, I replied, at least, my wife did. The woman clung to my hand as if she knew that it had, not that long ago, touched the still-living one she loved so much. "We were like sisters. We were together so much. I tried to find her, the last ten years. I couldn't find her. She was closer to me than a sister."

Too late, you might say, they were together. We had to bring my mother-in-law back to this place where she could be found by old friends and lost relatives. To see her arrayed in white in the tasteful white jewelry casket with delicate pink trim, it was beautiful, but it was not the same. We had cheated the woman, though not intentionally. She didn't seem to hold it against us, but her forgiveness did not lessen her despair.

You will see yourself on television in a minute, I told her. The old woman watched until her image appeared, tall, straight and austere next to the small, warm woman beside her. "She was always so neat and little," she said. So different, these two friends, I thought. My mother-in-law was pretty and graceful, her friend gawky and harsh-looking, but the old woman was almost unrecognizable in relation to her younger photograph. Time had softened her, bent her until the fragile could swallow up the awkward. The pain of years and disease had somehow erased the harshness with creases. Perhaps, after all, she had found her in time, certainly in time.

We are so foolish not to believe in the prayers of the saints. Because something was abused does not mean that it was not or is not now true. The old woman's metamorphosis is only the smallest of the miracles that were worked in that too-familiar room. Neither time nor the Spirit will allow me to tell all the tales of brokenness for healing. There are secrets the Master wants us to keep. He does love surprises. Sometimes, if we will hold our tongues, He will surprise even Himself.

She could barely walk forward with her four natural limbs and the four aluminum ones, caterpillar-like she moved to stand beside the carefully pinned and arranged form, so life-like, more gossamer even in death than life. She gazed upon her as if a last message were encoded in light from the peaceful and once more lovely visage. "I'm not far behind you," she whispered.

...
Waiting for the miracle
There's nothing left to do.
I haven't been this happy
since the end of World War II.

Nothing left to do
when you know that you've been taken.
Nothing left to do
when you're begging for a crumb
Nothing left to do
when you've got to go on waiting
waiting for the miracle to come.
....
When you've fallen on the highway
and you're lying in the rain,
and they ask you how you're doing
of course you'll say you can't complain --
If you're squeezed for information,
that's when you've got to play it dumb:
You just say you're out there waiting
for the miracle, for the miracle to come.
(From "Waiting for the Miracle" - Leonard Cohen)