For some reason I never noticed the swallowtail butterflies much before. Now they remind me of Scott.

I never wrote anything about Scott here, and then once we lost him in July 2015, I felt like writing was too flat and petty and too raw and deep all at once. It was exhausting to think about. Words were stupid. But there was so much going on in my heart and in my family that was precious, and I wish I’d made the effort to record at least some of it while it was happening. I think I felt like we’d always feel the way we did; why should I state the obvious?

The odd thing is, the butterflies have nothing to do with Scott. I haven’t ever associated one with the other before. It wasn’t until we lost him that I noticed the yellow butterflies were everywhere.

It was a Sunday morning at the end of July and I woke up to text messages from both my parents saying to “call us. bad news.” So with great trepidation I called Mom, to find out the night before, my youngest brother, her baby boy, had been riding on his motorcycle, just a mile from home, when he hit a median and tipped it, landed on the roadway, and was hit by a car. Sam was listening to my side of the conversation and asked me, “where? what hospital?” but all I could think to tell him there was no hospital.

It was so final. So sudden. So tragic.

The strangest thing to me about the swallowtail butterflies is that they don’t even remind me of Scott. They remind me of my grief. They remind me of the second half of that summer, when we were reeling from being kicked in the stomach in a way we never expected. Someone said that grief is the measure of one’s love for the one who is gone. The deeper the love, the larger the ache.

Yet the memories don’t stop there; I’m also reminded of the peace of God that surrounded us. Yes, a lot of that was shock. Shock is a blessing. The flow of people who are comforting and helpful and loving, and sometimes painfully awkward and in the way, are also a blessing. The busy process of involvement in planning a memorial service is a blessing in a way, because you have to keep moving, you have to think, you have to talk to people, you have to look at pictures. Then it’s done and people stop calling after a while, which is also a blessing, because I didn’t know how to answer when they asked how I was doing.

In many ways, we were great. We never wondered if God had abandoned us or if He somehow forgot to watch out for us or if this was some terrible twist in the plot. I’m grateful that we didn’t fall into despair. I looked back and realized with gratitude that my foundation of faith was not cracked or shifty, it was solid, and didn’t need to be adjusted to fit these terrible circumstances. The peace of God surrounded us.

The comfort of the Holy Spirit in the depth of sorrow is powerful and sweet. He came near to us in the most practical and personal ways during those weeks and I can now truly appreciate the truth spoken by Jesus, that those who mourn are truly blessed, because they can be intimately comforted. Those were just words to me before. Now they are balm to my very soul, even as I type them now. He knows me and he knows how to sew up my broken places.

Some of the most precious memories are those of sitting on the carpet in the girls’ room, reading the last chapters in the Bible, to find out what heaven is like. I never experienced real loss when I was a child, so I had nothing to compare their experience to. I could only talk to them very simply and honestly, about my sadness, and my hope, about how Scott trusted Jesus and we can trust Him, too. We cried together a lot. Their simple, “I miss Uncle Scott” is heard every so often still. I do, too, honey.

In other ways, we weren’t fully OK. I likened it to experiencing your own personal 9-11. When a large scale tragedy strikes, everyone knows about it, everyone is under the same cloud of disbelief and unsettledness and mourning. But it struck me as so odd when I went to the Kroger shortly after, and nobody else knew what was going on. They were just walking around like everything was normal. It upset me. Yet it sharpened my awareness of everyone around me. Any one of the people around me could be experiencing the same soul-piercing event, and I would never be aware. I reached out to a lady who was holding her head in the liquor aisle, to ask if she was OK. I felt like she surely must have been grappling with some big issues of life. She was fine, just trying to remember what kind of beer to get. It was a strangely isolating and communal feeling at the same time.

I had lost my baby brother. I not only lost him on that day, I lost the chance to get to know him better. I moved out to get married when he was only 14. Then I was caught up in my own life, and he was, well, an awkward teenager, who barely put two words together around me. Sam lost a brother-in-law. We lost a potential sister-in-law. Our girls lost their uncle, and the opportunity to really get to know him, and Timothy will only hear stories of Uncle Scott. My parents lost their youngest son. Brent lost his little brother. In some ways, Brent and I lost our parents. We all lost the chance to relate to Scott, and lost our future potential relationship with him.

We grieve potential: What could have been, what ought to have been.

Scott’s 26th birthday is tomorrow. But he’s celebrating in heaven. I guess they don’t really celebrate birthdays there, since there probably isn’t much passage of time in eternity. Regardless, he is celebrating. We, on the other hand, are looking in hope toward a celebration.

Tonight is Good Friday, where Jesus made right every wrong ever committed, including this tragedy that affects my family directly. He offers forgiveness that we can receive and extend. It seems fitting that Easter and Scott’s birthday are so close this year. Scott’s birthday makes me think of Scott, his birth, and his death. Easter is all about death and new life. I’m glad this year we don’t have to make such a mental jump between those days, and think about Scott, and Jesus, and a gravestone, and an empty tomb.  I am thankful beyond words for the gift of forgiveness, life, and hope in Jesus.

Maybe the butterfly is the symbol we need to be reminded of at Easter. What other creature undergoes such a transformation after it endures a time of seeming death?

We know what we look like now; we start off unimpressive and bound to this earth. But we do not know what we will be like, except that we will be with Him; He will wipe away all our tears and there will be no more sadness, dying or death.

“Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.” ~ John 3:2 ESV