Butterfly Chronicles Volume 70: I Need Some Hope

Dear Zach,

Today I dialed the number for a family coping with serious health issues with their children.  Ring and I couldn’t catch my breath.  A noose around my neck threatened to force tears and gag my mouth.  I thought I would have to hang up.  Offering to set up a Care Calendar, I plummeted back to your death and the door bell rings and the 100 lb weight of a grief trying to open the door – the strength it took to try to be normal, to try not to break down, to try not to envy the food grace givers for their healthy children who came to give me or us a hug.  There came a time when I just couldn't answer the door – and some caretaker would answer it for me.  I want to help this family, Zach, but tragedy vacuums my lungs clean of air, and I gasp, and I cry, and I miss you.  I don’t have anything to give.   But I think I need to give. 

The tribe had lunch recently, parking at a Chuy’s table for so long we tipped the waiter twice.  We talked kids.  My heart so heavy, shoulders hunched, listening to other mothers talk about alive children and tears came.  Alone in a crowd with this heart hurt.  I spoke of regrets, of guilt, of  how every thought I think of you is my failure – pictures where you smile, it feels like I stole that life from you, and I can’t look.  Head barely above water, I sink.  Mom T. talked about sorry’s she still says to her kids for things she did or things she wish she’d done, or things she wished she wouldn't have done.  Like a stiff pair of shoes rubbing raw on the back of an ankle, the sorry’s I can’t say scrape and tear and suck at the raw places in my soul – deeper goes the guilt gash every day.

Zach, ask Paul.  Ask him for me about guilt.  Surely he lived with it, fought with it, struggled against it for all those murders – for all those Christ lovers he hated unto death.  Surely, he did.  Beth Moore said over my Ipad today that God gave her a gift of pain.   Zach, ask God to show me how pain can be a gift and to find a way through this pain to forgiveness.  Days go by, and I don’t want to face another.  Living is a molasses quick sand hand pulling me down into a dark decay of guilt.

How funny I could break into hysterical laughter at people who say, “It’s not your fault.  You did the very best you could.  You are a good mother.”  Really?  What grade do you get as a mother when your child takes his own life?  Are their boys dead, all buried away in a hole in the ground, bodies decaying?  How dare they say that to me.  But they don’t know, and I do know they don’t know. How could they know?  So I am quiet.   We can’t walk in each other’s shoes.  We can only open our hearts to each other and share kindness and love in the midst of all our warts.

Zach, ask Paul.  Ask David.  Ask Noah how it felt to hear the strangled cries of all those God haters.  Did all those dead hands flailing make him feel guilty? Did he fret and wonder over why God chose him for life or over why God chose them for death?  Were his dreams ever filled with the screams of the drowning?  Did David feel guilt over his sins with Bathsheba?  Did he ever wish his life over?  I think about this.  My shoulders hunch over, and I can’t answer the “How are you?” checker talk in the grocery line. What I know for sure is that it took God 13-ish years to take Joseph from the well meant for his evil to a kingdom where God changed evil to good.  Zach, I don’t know if I can wait 13 years or even a day. I don’t understand or see how this sad can ever be turned into glad – or this evil into good.

Why Zach?  There are so many sorry’s I wish I could say.  There are so many hugs, and I love you’s I can’t ever say.  I hope another mother will tell her son.  Tell her son how a suicide son kills his life and kills the lives of those who feel him dead.  Someday, God, let me look back on this burden of shame, regret, guilt, and all the sorry’s I can’t say – let me see how you painted evil into good.  It will be a miracle because alone I am one of the hopeless drowning.

 Zach, I’m sorry.  I would give anything to say sorry, to touch your warm face, and to see your happy’s and smiles and watch you grow up.  Some days I don’t believe in God.  But if I don’t, truly, what is the point?  I can’t give you up into nothingness.  I have to hold on to you in heaven. I struggle to hold onto that place of no more sorrow or pain or tears.  I struggle to believe it is real.  Your hug when you came in the dream tells me it is real, but can you come again?  Can you show me that slice of heaven again to pick me up, to help me carry on for another and another day?

Zach – ask God to show me his turning this evil into good. These scars weigh a body down.  Ask Him to give us hope.

I love you, son. I am sorry.

Mom

Butterfly Chronicles Volume 69: The Sacrifice

We're watching The Bible.  Abraham ties Isaac to the alter and lifts the knife.  The lamb bleats. God provides the lamb.

Madison asks her dad if he would sacrifice her if God told him to.  Fortunately, God doesn't test us that way today he says.

Then she asks me.  No.  I wouldn't if God asked me to.  I couldn't do it.  He knows I couldn't do it.

I thought about that and realized He already took the sacrifice.  No lamb.

Loneliness in a crowd is a strange feeling.  Why does He want us in this place?

Our big girl says God doesn't work.  She says she's tried.  You, mom, she says, have kept your faith.  You have stayed close to God.  You talk about him; you write about it in your blog.

No, I say.  Everything I write is a lie.  I don't believe it.  I don't mean it.  I am not strong.  I am alone.  Just like you and Maddy and Daddy - we are alone.

We live in a barren land where other brothers, other sons grow up.

No, I would never make the sacrifice.  But He didn't ask.

Butterflies.

Butterfly Chronicles Volume 68: The "Ick" Story

All the world's a stage.  Two players.


Younger woman; short, tight skirt; cleavage. Christian.

Older woman; bun high; shirt to chin; skirt to floor. Christian.
Jesus - carpenter clothes to King of Kings.

Older woman crosses restaurant to "Ladies."
Eyes razor slice up and down young woman.

Older "Lady" - sharp - two-edged sword - "Ick." punctures the younger. 
Out loud the older said it to those younger ears."Ick"

Titus says older teach younger what is good, kindness. Where does goodness and kindness reside - do we even try to see it?  Guilty. Would that older have been kinder if she knew the struggle younger has?  Christ - kind.  He loves that younger and that older, no matter what.  No matter what.



Does anyone remember that "...all our righteous acts are like filthy rags...?" I forget.  Does God see us or Christ in us? I see flickers of soft disgust in hurried glances across my son's name tattooed on my wrist and at the butterfly tattoo on my foot.  I smile and think, if only you knew.  Zach's death has given me a little kindness to see past what I couldn't see past before. It's good and kind to wonder through Christ's eyes what another's story might be. To be kind.

My soul longs for a re-do to erase the "ick" of a mother's life to save the life of her son, to erase herself and blow the red rubber remnants away, and draw the son's story again. God says, "No. The pencil for Zach's earth life is broken. The end."

Butterflies flutter over a heart beating tears.

Older woman, buttoned up prim, proper appearance as if garb can hide "filthy rags." Young woman taught "Ick" as if salvation was a man-made garment.

Isn't it when we catch ourselves eye to eye against the TRUTH, isn't that the birthplace of our "Ick." It's inside that "all we like sheep have gone astray." If we turned ourselves inside out - all our sins showing on the outside, who could love us? Christ alone.

Salvation isn't lost to cleavage, and it isn't gained by a skirt to the floor, or a good deed, or a thousand good deeds. God sees us through our King, and not one of us is worthy of His glance.  Aren't we blessed. Shouldn't I be glad God has Zach?  We try then ask why?

I want God to erase that night and all these days after. It's an "ick" we wear on the inside - chewing, hungry for our souls. Guilt  - coulda, woulda, shoulda.

Hand in hand, always fighting the fear of who will be next, Michael and I run and grab and desperately hold on to our living lights, our girls.  Flying behind them, we are kite tails, whipped, bounced, shredding strings slung against a violently calm ocean of air, the future incomprehensible, all of us - swollen with trauma. Nightmares haunt.  We will never be the same. We are lonely in our lives. Other boys grow up. Who could understand? God alone.

Zach is happy. Saved from whatever evil would've come his way. "Ick" erased. Salvation is what happened on his inside.  Zach is home, because of  God alone.  And we take another step because of God alone.

And He sends butterflies - never missed even one day.

Butterfly Chronicles Volume 67: "This Ain't No Party. This Ain't No Disco. This Ain't No Foolin' Around."

It lands like a punch in the face this “love” from God. Am I alone? Do other Christians walk around in a place where the Christian life is a jaunt through the rainbow squares of Candy Land? How could I have been caught off guard? How did I forget that TRUTH IS a punch in the face? To say to a pre-saved me and to a dead world – you are doomed – you are dead – you are nothing without the saving grace of Jesus Christ – Y O U   H A V E   NO   H O P E. Say that in LOVE? I can say those words in the sweet, sing-song, love voice of an angel – but it’s a punch in the face kind of love no matter how scream-o or sweet-o the lyrics are. Believe or die. The end.

Since January, my brain’s been engaged and picking its way through a tangled web to find truth. The web is unwoven. My brain rests. My heart aches. Peter M.D. says it was good for my brain to care. But, now I know why the girls fill every moment with something other than quiet. It closes the mind’s picture show of memories, black as night, without air, filled with screaming, and flashing lights, and

questions, and policemen, and ambulance, and stretcher, and black zipped up bag, and neighbors huddled in the street. Shock. A life over, poof. How can post traumatic stress disorder be described in words? Maybe that’s why those Vietnam Vets don’t talk about what happened over there - "it ain't no party." You relive it, heart beating, sweating, panic, fear, in the very moment again. It's not a memory.  It's real.

Smiling a fake mustached smile, Zach peered back at me from a tacked photo. That punch in the face moment when panic screeches out of control with the all over again realization that he’s not ever coming back. The head resting in a box on white satin with eyes that won’t open – he’s not coming back. I can’t look at his photos, and I feel guilty that I can’t look at his photos. I come undone.

How does it feel this coming undone? A crawl into a dark closet to hide the tears, pulling handfuls of hair wishing they’d jerk out at the roots, an almost uncontrollable desire to slam a head into the tile floor to just have it be all over.

And I ask again. How can this punch in the face be love? I’m too tired to unearth blessings. How can living with the guilt of every mistake ever made ever go away?

The future stretches, and it too is a punch in the face. A journey I don’t want to make. Poms poms packed away with the Candy Land Christian life where everything’s a “big rock candy mountain.”

You’re such an inspiration. No, really, if you could see me and hear me and know my heart, you would know I couldn’t and shouldn’t be an inspiration to anyone. I want my son back.

You’re so strong. No, really, if you could see me in Peter M.D.’s office wishing myself back to numbness and fog and crouching in the dark to fight off fear – you’d know I am not strong. I want my son back.

The days stretch on. Life feels too long. The punches too hard. Hug your children.

I don’t feel better. I just feel tired.

Sometimes love is a punch in the face. I don’t get it, God, but it’s true.

I want my son back.


"Life During Wartime" (This Ain't No Party)
Talking Heads

Heard of a van that is loaded with weapons,
packed up and ready to go
Heard of some grave sites, out by the highway,
a place where nobody knows
The sound of gunfire, off in the distance,
I'm getting used to it now
Lived in a brownstone, lived in the ghetto,
I've lived all over this town

This ain't no party, this ain't no disco,
this ain't no fooling around
No time for dancing, or lovey dovey,
I ain't got time for that now

Transmit the message, to the receiver,
hope for an answer some day
I got three passports, a couple of visas,
you don't even know my real name
High on a hillside, the trucks are loading,
everything's ready to roll
I sleep in the daytime, I work in the nighttime,
I might not ever get home

This ain't no party, this ain't no disco,
this ain't no fooling around
This ain't no Mudd Club, or C. B. G. B.,
I ain't got time for that now
Heard about Houston? Heard about Detroit?
Heard about Pittsburgh, P. A.?
You oughta know not to stand by the window
somebody might see you up there
I got some groceries, some peanut butter,
to last a couple of days
But I ain't got no speakers, ain't got no
headphones, ain't got no records to play

Why stay in college? Why go to night school?
Gonna be different this time
Can't write a letter, can't send a postcard,
I can't write nothing at all
This ain't no party, this ain't no disco,
this ain't no fooling around
I'd like to kiss you, I'd love you hold you
I ain't got no time for that now

Trouble in transit, got through the roadblock,
we blended with the crowd
We got computer, we're tapping phone lines,
I know that ain't allowed
We dress like students, we dress like housewives,
or in a suit and a tie
I changed my hairstyle, so many times now,
I don't know what I look like!
You make me shiver, I feel so tender,
we make a pretty good team
Don't get exhausted, I'll do some driving,
you ought to get some sleep
Get you instructions, follow directions,
then you should change your address
Maybe tomorrow, maybe the next day,
whatever you think is best
Burned all my notebooks, what good are
notebooks? They won't help me survive
My chest is aching, burns like a furnace,
the burning keeps me alive
Try to stay healthy, physical fitness,
don't want to catch no disease
Try to be careful, don't take no chances,
you better watch what you say

Heard of a van that is loaded with weapons,
packed up and ready to go
Heard of some grave sites, out by the highway,
a place where nobody knows
The sound of gunfire, off in the distance,
I'm getting used to it now
Lived in a brownstone, lived in the ghetto,
I've lived all over this town

This ain't no party, this ain't no disco,
this ain't no fooling around
No time for dancing, or lovey dovey,
I ain't got time for that now

Transmit the message, to the receiver,
hope for an answer some day
I got three passports, a couple of visas,
you don't even know my real name
High on a hillside, the trucks are loading,
everything's ready to roll
I sleep in the daytime, I work in the nighttime,
I might not ever get home

This ain't no party, this ain't no disco,
this ain't no fooling around
This ain't no Mudd Club, or C. B. G. B.,
I ain't got time for that now
Heard about Houston? Heard about Detroit?
Heard about Pittsburgh, P. A.?
You oughta know not to stand by the window
somebody might see you up there
I got some groceries, some peanut butter,
to last a couple of days
But I ain't got no speakers, ain't got no
headphones, ain't got no records to play

Why stay in college? Why go to night school?
Gonna be different this time
Can't write a letter, can't send a postcard,
I can't write nothing at all
This ain't no party, this ain't no disco,
this ain't no fooling around
I'd like to kiss you, I'd love you hold you
I ain't got no time for that now

Trouble in transit, got through the roadblock,
we blended with the crowd
We got computer, we're tapping phone lines,
I know that ain't allowed
We dress like students, we dress like housewives,
or in a suit and a tie
I changed my hairstyle, so many times now,
I don't know what I look like!
You make me shiver, I feel so tender,
we make a pretty good team
Don't get exhausted, I'll do some driving,
you ought to get some sleep
Get you instructions, follow directions,
then you should change your address
Maybe tomorrow, maybe the next day,
whatever you think is best
Burned all my notebooks, what good are
notebooks? They won't help me survive
My chest is aching, burns like a furnace,
the burning keeps me alive
Try to stay healthy, physical fitness,
don't want to catch no disease
Try to be careful, don't take no chances,
you better watch what you say

Butterfly Chronicles Volume 65: Why Do I Forget Satan Trembles?

“…humble yourselves before God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”

Christmas, holidays, Zach’s birthday, all playing out like a movie I am watching but not a part of.  Satan hisses it’s your fault.  Gripping my heart, the blood filled muscle crushing, oozing between his fingers, snake tongue licking my ear searching for my thoughts and fears, blowing slowly curling black smoke filled with words: shame for your past, shame for your mothering, shame for your self-righteousness, shame for all your mistakes, shame for your faltering faith in a God who wouldn’t save the likes of you. Unworthy, you.  Hissing.  Humid mouth breath filling my brain, suffocating my faith.

“You say you have faith, for you believe that there is one God. Good for you! Even the demons believe this, and they tremble in terror.” 

They tremble in terror of my God who I don’t almost believe in anymore.  They tremble.

“…my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.”

Those licking lies of Satan.  “God could never love you.  You’re broken.  You’ll always be broken.  God could never love you.”

Exploding light crackles, bursting, splits the hissing wet tongue tickle of Satan’s lies, blinds them searing them out of my head.

The light, speaking a tender voice of steel, I love even you, Satan.  I love you because of who I am, not because of who you are or who you aren’t.  I didn’t choose the road for you, Satan. You chose.  I love her.  I love her because of who I am, not because of who she is or who she isn’t.  I want none to perish, but that choice belonged to you, Satan.  That choice belongs to her.

Guess what Satan.  In your hot sweaty lies, you hide the truth about you. You, Satan, are broken too.  You’ll always be broken.  You chose you over God. You can't hide your trembling from Him.

You, Satan, are right.  I am broken.  But I chose THE TRUTH, THE WAY, THE WORD, THE LIFE,  and the God of the Universe, who makes something from nothing, sees me through my Savior – even if I hear your lies louder than HIS love.

I forget my armor.  I forget my power in the Lord.  I am sad and weak and broken.  You, Satan, operate in your own power, from your own lusts, from your own evil heart – and you stand before God naked and broken without the cloak of salvation given to me by Jesus Christ – which unbreaks all my brokenness.  You will forever be broken.  You pursue with vengeance, but vengeance is mine says the Lord.

I hear you.  Sometimes I listen.  Sometimes I believe your lies.  But Satan, even when I fail and fall, fall, fall away from my God, He will never leave me or forsake me, and you, Satan, left and forsook God.

My eternal address is firm and unfailing.  Guess what, Satan, so is yours.

Even when I am down and your hot breath stamps the stink of dead on my mind, you can’t win.  Victory is mine because of Jesus Christ.  Hiss, lie, twist me up, break me.  God forever wins, which means He wins for me – and because He who is in me is greater than you who are in the world, I can’t do one thing to separate myself from Him and His love.  Neither could Zach. 

Get thee back broken Satan.  My God fights for me, and you tremble.

Butterfly Chronicles Volume 64: Christmas and Butterflies

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given...

Twas the week before Christmas and in my heart deep
old memories stirred tears my eyes could not keep
Zach laid to rest, his second Christmas not here
Face to face with the Lord should bring me good cheer



The evergreen tree stands all naked and sad
While boxes of ornaments unpack and feel glad
Madison strings lights twinkly bright round the trunk
Red balls, blings, and butterflies, tree sways and looks drunk



Thinking past, present, future, fast forward, rewind
Mental memory movies - traipse through the mind
Living past and present at the same ticking time
Meshing then and now, a new mountain to climb

Scrapbook of new memories still scantily clad
Christmas all new for Taylor, Maddy, Mom, and Dad
Christ came at Christmas then hung, bled, and died
Resurrected, He'll save us if we swallow our pride



Merry Christmas is different with Zach's empty place
Not merry but full of God's infinite grace
Moment by moment God proves that He's there
Butterflies, butterflies, every day, everywhere.

Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved - just like Zach.
Merry Christmas, son. I can't give you any better gift than you are already living, and I love you to the moon and back and back and back.

Butterfly Chronicles Volume 63: Joy?

Joy comes in the morning?

Ever been caught between a rock and a hard place?  How does a person in the “Child Gone to Heaven Club” learn to stop feeling bad about feeling good?  Other mothers do it, make it, maybe not all the time, but don’t they grow to feeling good most of the time?  It seems irresponsible. A shirking of one’s duties, the passing of a baton that feels wrong to release.

Other mothers, some mothers, bubble over with joy.  Do they put down grief, put down that constant throbbing cement filled handbag dragging the ground that hangs on their shoulders?  Isn’t the grief always that heavy, or is this all wrong?  Is the grief ever less than the joy?  How?

It feels so bad to feel good, and so good to feel bad. Why would a mother give that up?  Holding on tightly to pain, heartbreak, depression, and refusing to allow joy to bubble, that’s the road to take, right? That's what defines a mother now, isn't it? This is the new normal life, right? Holding on to feeling bad about feeling good honors Zach, keeps him close, insures the price of guilt is continually paid, doesn’t it?

Marsha and Colleen, doesn’t it?  Your children in heaven with mine and you smile and talk about grace and forgiveness and God gently scrubbing your soul's guilt away.  But feeling bad about feeling good feels better, doesn’t it?  Isn’t this sadness a cloak super glued to the skin to be worn as an itchy, skin tearing reminder of everything that would be made different if given the chance?  Or is it?

Questions march in perfect time across the expanse of a brain.  Is this how it is supposed to be?  Or, is it okay to feel good, to not feel bad about feeling good?  Is it okay to let God have the guilt, to feel good about smiling, to let God erase the bass drum of what if, what if, what if, that never stops beating?

Mothers, some mothers, said the second year is harder.  Is it?  Does it have to be? 

Marsha and Colleen bubble with joy, grief in the background of their smiles, grief behind a joy growing stronger, grief sometimes barely visible if not sometimes invisible.  How did the strength grow to get them there?  They both told me, God.  Eerie, that freedom from grief that's grown in Colleen and that freedom that grows in Marsha.  Believable?  Real?  God.

God, grow me to that place where I don’t feel bad about feeling good, or I'll just stay here where it feels good to feel bad, where bad feels right.   

God, grow me to a place where joy bubbles, where I feel grace and forgiveness. That is how it is supposed to be, isn’t it?