Adieu to 2009

At the end of 2009 I feel as though I have had the stuffing knocked out of me. Luke has been such an incredible gift, not just for me but for the whole family.

But the experience is so bittersweet as it is impossible to emerge from an experience like that without some battle wounds, and a battle it certainly has been. I know that on the one hand Luke was so necessary for us all to grow, both as individuals and as a family and his coming has brought that and so much more, but on the other hand, it has strained Dave, Ashton and I almost to breaking point, physically, emotionally, mentally and financially. But the learning is so poignant because on reflection, I can see that although it was a manic time, as Helen Keller to aptly put it “Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.“

There is a beautiful story about a boy and a butterfly which illustrates perfectly how I feel;

Once a little boy was playing outdoors and found a fascinating caterpillar. He carefully picked it up and took it home to show his mother. He asked his mother if he could keep it, and she said he could if he would take good care of it.

The little boy got a large jar from his mother and put plants to eat, and a stick to climb on, in the jar. Every day he watched the caterpillar and brought it new plants to eat.

One day the caterpillar climbed up the stick and started acting strangely. The boy worriedly called his mother who came and understood that the caterpillar was creating a cocoon. The mother explained to the boy how the caterpillar was going to go through a metamorphosis and become a butterfly.

The little boy was thrilled to hear about the changes his caterpillar would go through. He watched every day, waiting for the butterfly to emerge. One day it happened, a small hole appeared in the cocoon and the butterfly started to struggle to come out.

At first the boy was excited, but soon he became concerned. The butterfly was struggling so hard to get out! It looked like it couldn’t break free! It looked desperate! It looked like it was making no progress.

The boy was so concerned he decided to help. He ran to get scissors, and then walked back (because he had learned not to run with scissors…). He snipped the cocoon to make the hole bigger and the butterfly quickly emerged!

As the butterfly came out the boy was surprised. It had a swollen body and small, shriveled wings. He continued to watch the butterfly expecting that, at any moment, the wings would dry out, enlarge and expand to support the swollen body. He knew that in time the body would shrink and the butterfly’s wings would expand.

But neither happened!

The butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings.

It never was able to fly…

As the boy tried to figure out what had gone wrong his mother took him to talk to a scientist from a local college. He learned that the butterfly was SUPPOSED to struggle. In fact, the butterfly’s struggle to push its way through the tiny opening of the cocoon pushes the fluid out of its body and into its wings. Without the struggle, the butterfly would never, ever fly. The boy’s good intentions hurt the butterfly.

For us as a family it feels like we have well and truly shed the security of our cocoon but we haven’t yet learned how to fly. We are still in limbo having emerged from this experience as a much tighter family with strengthened bonds both between myself, Dave and Ashton and also with our extended family, but we still need time to heal. This love, encouragement and support from our family and friends has reconnected me with a Spiritual side that has for a while been dormant. I now see the world for what it truly is, that we are all connected, and that no matter what colour, religion, sex or race we are – we are human and those bonds run deep. We have our own community’s form of Ubuntu and that bond transcends the physical world that we perceive on a daily basis.