Where the Butterfly Went - by J.H. Edmonds

Where the Butterfly Went - March 5th, 2015

by J.H. Edmonds

The July before my sophomore year of college, I was taking summer classes and spending the weekends with my father and stepmother in Louisiana. Their two-story white house is down a gravel road that shoots off of Highway 15 in the country of Catahoula Parish in Louisiana. I would leave on a Friday afternoon and get home late, with home-cooked dinner from my stepmom, Miss Candy, waiting for me. Then I would go into the living room where my dad was tucked away in a corner on his computer, surrounded by four house dogs. I'd fall into the couch and he'd sit across the room from me in a recliner and we'd talk late into the night about college football, pocket knives, wildlife, our dogs, and the army. These were my dad's favorite topics, and we'd often stay up past midnight until my eyes started to droop and I'd head upstairs for the night. I'd wake up to breakfast Miss Candy had made for me and would find my dad outside, usually covered in sweat while he worked on something or played with the five outside dogs. He'd take breaks to drink lemon lime Gatorade and sit on the back porch under ceiling fans that never seemed to cool him off. At dusk, he'd put the outside dogs back into their pen, then he'd go shower and go back to his computer in the corner of the living room. Miss Candy would make us dinner, but my dad would stay in his corner and eat ramen he had bought from an Asian market, which I suspect was to remind him of the days he had spent in Korea while he was in the army. The next day, Sunday, we'd go to church and have the same routine as the day before. And Monday morning I would drive down the gravel road, watching my dad and Miss Candy wave in the rear view mirror.

Towards the end of July, I came home on a weekend much like the ones previously described, my dad looked at me and said something short and striking: “Katie Bowie's not doing well.”

Katie Bowie was the name of one of the house dogs we had. She was a sweet little black lab who had a peculiar balance of shyness and playfulness that made her easy to love. My dad had named her after his childhood nanny out of homage and respect to her. He explained to me that Katie Bowie seemed weak and tired and that they had been to the veterinarian and the forecast was dim. I looked at Katie Bowie, who was sitting next to my dad. Then I looked at him. He seemed troubled by it. I tried to read his thoughts and felt like I could get a good measure of them. They're like children. She's like one of my own. My dad was a quiet man. He would say his piece about things he had a strong opinion on, the chief of which was Alabama football and the US Army. But besides that, he kept to himself and spent most of his breath talking softly to our dogs. He furrowed his brows and went back to reading something on his computer.

The next day we were out shooting snakes in the woods behind the house. It was hot and humid, as every July is in Louisiana, and my dad's gray t-shirt was covered in sweat. He had sweat on his forehead that trickled down to his nose and hung there and he never wiped it. It didn't seem to bother him. It gathered on his chin and ears, as well, but he seemed oblivious of the presence of the drops of sweat. His gray hair was tucked under a black ball that shielded his eyes from the summer sun. It had a patch on the front with the head of Hercules's noble steed, Pegasus, on it. It was the emblem of the US Army's 1st Cavalry Division, the unit he deployed with for the Persian Gulf War. My dad was a tall and lanky man, and he looked like a giant as he strode through the low brush of the bayou we were watching. His bright blue eyes scanned the water and banks of the bayou intently, searching for any trace of movement that might show us where a water moccasin might be hidden. He held his old .22 rifle in the crook of his arm, and I saw him move his arms out of the corner of my eye and thought he was moving to shoot a snake. But I was wrong.

A butterfly was fluttering around his head and he was smiling broadly. I often thought of my dad as hardened, sometimes solemn, and made of steel. But I sensed a certain tenderness born out of the innocence of pure compassion towards all living things. My dad loved nature. He loved his dogs. He loved his family. And I saw that as he extended his hand for the butterfly to land on. But I felt a pang in my heart. Earlier that summer, my wife, Alex, told me that when a butterfly lands on you, the oils of your skin are lethal to it. I opened my mouth to say something to my dad, but the butterfly had already landed and was flapping its wings in a grand display for my dad, who was chuckling quietly and smiling with something I thought seemed like boyish innocence. He lifted his hand to show me and smiled. I wasn't going to say anything. I couldn't really. The butterfly slowly lifted off of my dad's hand and flew away. I watched it as it disappeared into the trees and wondered what would happen to it.

The next morning after breakfast, my dad told me that Katie Bowie was in a lot of pain and that he was going to take her into the vet to be put to sleep. I felt my heart drop. He seemed distressed and I saw something in his eyes I was unsure about. Miss Candy and my stepsister, Missy, came down stairs and were both crying. I walked into the bedroom with my dad to help him carry her to his truck. Katie Bowie saw us bending over to her and tried to stand up to greet us but couldn't manage it. Her legs buckled and she fell to the ground. Then I heard something that will stay with me for the rest of my life. My dad was weeping. I had never seen my own dad cry before. At his mother's funeral, I suspected I had seen some moisture in his eyes, but I hadn't been sure. We had said goodbye many times for long periods of time, and he had not cried then. I never saw him cry until then, when I was nineteen going on twenty. And it broke my heart.

“My baby can't stand up. My baby couldn't even get up. My poor baby”, he sobbed.

Then, to my amazement, my dad did something none of us expected. He lifted Katie Bowie up by himself and carried her out to his truck. As he passed us, Missy and Miss Candy kissed Katie Bowie and wept, and I was the only one not crying. This was amazing because my dad has a terrible back. He has two ruptured vertebrae in his spine from years of abuse in the army. He seemed like Iron Man to me at that moment. Except that my dad was not Tony Stark, he was actually made of iron. Miss Candy drove the truck and I sat up front with her while my dad held Katie Bowie in the back. When we got to the vet's office, the veterinarian, a kind country gentleman named Dr. Sullivan, came out and administered the shot after explaining to us the humanity of it. My dad kissed Katie Bowie and we all wept.

That afternoon was burning hot, and I sweated profusely as I dug into the dirt with the shovel. My dad had strained his back with his momentary rush of strength, and I was giving him a break as I dug Katie Bowie's resting place out. We wanted it to be deep, it had to be good for Katie Bowie. My arms began to tire and I was still weeping but I kept going until my dad told me it was deep enough. Then I stepped out of the hole, and picked up the small figure wrapped in a white bedsheet and gently set her down in the moist Louisiana dirt. Then my dad laid Katie Bowie's tennis ball down next to her, and I covered the beautiful little dog we loved with the same moist sod. As the sun began to set, I smoothed out the ground over Katie Bowie's resting place, and watched my dad as he looked past me at the house. Behind him, unbeknownst to him, a butterfly swirled in the warm, evening breeze. I watched it trail off into the shadows of the trees behind our house and wondered where it was going.

o o o o o

The Return of the Butterfly - July 29th, 2022
by J.H. Edmonds

Seven years and some change after I wrote a short story about my dad, his dog, and a butterfly, my own journey with loss began in earnest. I was at home in southern Arizona, looking out at the mountains from my backyard with my dogs as the heat of June faded into a cool evening breeze. I had left my phone inside to avoid disturbing the tranquility of the moment. My wife, Alex, came outside with a look of distress on her face, telling me that Miss Candy, my stepmother, was on the phone. I heard Miss Candy tell Alex that if I wasn’t already sitting down, she should make sure I was seated. I took the phone and Miss Candy told me that my dad had gone to the hospital for pain under his arms and in his leg. In addition to blood clots in one leg and his chest, the doctors discovered that my dad had pancreatic cancer. We didn’t have enough information then to know what stage it was or how much time my dad had. I felt disoriented and sick and empty. My dad. Not my dad. To me, he seemed invincible. He was seventeen-year army veteran with distinguished combat service in one war under his belt, he was the most physically fit and active 64-year-old man I knew, and he had just recently repeated his weekly routine of mowing, weed-eating, and raking grass piles in a yard the size of a football field. He had rarely shown any outward signs of pain or fatigue as long as I had known him, even with slipped discs in his back and preventricular contractions in his heart. 

 

I booked a flight home to Louisiana to see my dad. The combination of the pressure on his pancreas and the blood clot in his leg had begun to limit his mobility and caused him a lot of pain. He spent most of his time in a reclining armchair and the only times I remember him getting up besides going to the bathroom were to let me inside the house my first night back home, to come outside on the back porch and supervise while I mowed the lawn, and to go see the new Top Gun movie. We had learned by then that the pancreatic cancer was stage four and had spread to his liver. My dad was incredibly philosophical about it - rooted in his deep faith in God. I had given him a journal for Father’s Day and this is an excerpt of his thoughts on life and death:

“Well, yesterday we got the news, didn’t we? Stage four cancer with a prognosis of a year . . . It’s not that I reject science’s conclusions out of hand; could be longer / could be shorter. But science often fails to acknowledge our Lord God Almighty. He will determine when I will be called back and there is no arguing with the Creator . . . I don’t want to die, but I am not afraid to die. I trust our Lord. He knows what He is doing. He has taught me to trust him.”

 

I was able to do one more weekend visit a few weeks later. My dad and I talked late into the night about God, the army, America, Louisiana, family history, and a dozen other subjects that kept us up past midnight. About a week later, while I was back in Arizona, Miss Candy called me to tell me that my dad had a massive stroke and that we didn’t have much time left. So, I went home to Louisiana again. The time my dad and I had together will always be precious to me. I was able to reach out to several of his old army comrades and listen to phone conversations between them or read notes from some of them to my dad. In the hospital, when I thought my dad’s pain medication had him in a deep sleep, he woke up to my gentle sobs while my back was turned to him, and I felt him place his hand on my back to comfort me. 

 

My dad wanted to go home to Cedar Bluff - he did not want to die in a hospital. At home, we kept him comfortable and stayed by his side. He communicated to us through written notes, hand squeezes, and hand gestures. I slept by his side every night in an armchair and watched through my peripheral vision one night as a mirror across the room played host to the shapes of people walking back and forth in the no man’s land between life and death. I have never experienced anything like that before in my life and I don’t know if I ever will again. I couldn’t see anything when I turned my head to look directly at the mirror, and it never happened to me on any other night. It could have been a trick of the light, tired eyes, or a troubled mind. But I don’t think so. Whoever they were - angels, long dead loved ones, or both - I am sure they were there to guide my dad into the next great adventure that follows death.  My dad died a few nights later, with me and Miss Candy at his side. He opened his eyes one more time and then slipped away like he was falling asleep in peace. My dad died only six weeks after finding out he had cancer. 

 

The day after my dad died, Miss Candy and I drove to the cemetery to check the plot where my dad would be buried. On our way home, one of my dad’s favorite songs - “Unchained Melody” by the Righteous Brothers came on the radio and we turned into our driveway to find a full rainbow over the house. Only a few days later, shortly before I had to go back to work, I was walking in the backyard with Alex and our dogs when a monarch butterfly - just like the one I had seen years before in a summer memory with my dad - started to flutter around me. He landed on our hound dog’s leash, then on my shoulder, and then on my hat - staying with me for half an hour before flying away . . . disappearing into the summer morning and leaving me with the impression that my dad had just let me know that he was going to be alright and that part of him would always be with me. I know I will see that butterfly . . . and my dad . . . again.