One Loss Too Many

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Yesterday should have been a gray day with a weeping sky. That was the forecast. Instead the day was sunny and cool - a perfect spring day. The sunny weather was a betrayal. In a world where children die and dreams are destroyed, a sunny day can be unbearable. Eight years ago yesterday my son A’s friend Kelly died. Kelly was 20 years old and had been diagnosed with Leukemia when she was fifteen. Kelly never learned to drive a car, but she graduated from high school at the top of her class, spent the summer before college working with children in the Americorp program, and became engaged while away at college. Her whole future was before her.

“I dreamed a dream in time gone by
When hope was high
And life worth living
I dreamed that love would never die
I dreamed that God would be forgiving..."
~Les Miserables - I Dreamed a Dream

The following summer everything fell apart. Kelly began to come out of remission and her oncologist recommended a bone marrow transplant. Instead of giving up and retreating from life, Kelly chose to live. She enrolled in college locally, moved into her own apartment, worked part-time at a hospital with the goal of becoming a physician, and adopted a cat she named Sage. In October of 2001 she underwent the bone marrow transplant. Over the following five months Kelly was in the hospital for every holiday - Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s Eve, New Year’s Day, St. Valentine’s Day, and Easter. One day I asked my son when Kelly would be leaving the hospital and he responded, “Not in this lifetime.”

"I had a dream my life would be
So different from this Hell I'm living
So different now from what it seemed
Now life has killed the dream I dreamed.”

Kelly died on a Wednesday and was buried on the day Louisville began its pre-Derby celebration. The day was gray and rainy as if the whole world was weeping for the loss it had suffered.

I am not a religious person. I do not believe in a literal Heaven or Hell. Children should not die before their parents and dreams should not be destroyed. If there is a hell, it is here on earth. Scientists say that energy cannot be destroyed. I hope that somewhere everything that was Kelly still exists ~albeit in another form. To believe otherwise would make life unbearable.

What the caterpillar perceives is the end, to the butterfly is just the beginning. ~Unknown

Every time I see a butterfly I think of Kelly and what should have been.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~