Healing

While I continue to mourn the loss of our little tiny friend, I'm not trying to make sense of it anymore. There are some things that just don't make sense. There are some things that just aren't fair...that just aren't right. And while I am not a religious person, I feel relief knowing that Blake and Libby are finding strength in their own faith. I am thankful that they have such an amazingly supportive community helping them celebrate the life of their daughter. I hope they know how much we truly love them, and I hope our love and friendship provides additional strength and healing. They have been so strong and courageous, and they are an inspiration to many. Whatever happens after this life that we know, wherever we may go after we have no use for our physical bodies, I am comforted to know that Pax is free of pain and no longer fighting. I wish that I had gotten to see her more, to know her better, to watch her grow up. But I am grateful that she was a part of my life, even if for such a short time. I hope that her family is comforted by knowing that she will never be forgotten.

I read the following at my grandfather's funeral, and I am reminded of it again now. I am unsure of the original source, but I love the story that it tells. May all who knew Paxten find peace in their hearts and carry their love for her and her family forever.

Once, in a little pond, in the muddy water under the lily pads, there lived a little water beetle in a community of water beetles. They lived a simple and comfortable life in the pond with few disturbances and interruptions. Once in a while, sadness would come to the community when one of their fellow beetles would climb the stem of a lily pad and would never be seen again. They knew when this happened; their friend was dead, gone forever.

Then, one day, one little water beetle felt an irresistible urge to climb up that stem. However, he was determined that he would not leave forever. He would come back and tell his friends what he had found at the top. When he reached the top and climbed out of the water onto the surface of the lily pad, he was so tired, and the sun felt so warm, that he decided he must take a nap. As he slept, his body changed and when he woke up, he had turned into a beautiful blue-tailed dragonfly with broad wings and a slender body designed for flying.

So, fly he did! And, as he soared he saw the beauty of a whole new world and a far superior way of life to what he had never known existed. Then he remembered his beetle friends and how they were thinking by now he was dead. He wanted to go back to tell them, and explain to them that he was now more alive than he had ever been before. His life had been fulfilled rather than ended. But, his new body would not go down into the water. He could not get back to tell his friends the good news. Then he understood that their time would come, when they, too, would know what he now knew. So, he raised his wings and flew off into his joyous new life!