He did it! Dad made it through the portal. It was an intense struggle. He labored from Saturday afternoon until 2:15 AM Monday morning, balancing the need to breathe with the desire to let go. In his last breath his voice mumbled what may have been a declaration that he did it!
I stood there staring at his gaunt body. What happened? It did not look anything like the person I conversed with just a day and a half before. I couldn’t see my dad in the image before me. He wasn’t there.
I have been to many funerals in my lifetime, but in all of them either the body was embalmed and neatly made-up to resemble a memorable photograph, or an urn was positioned next to such a picture. None of them presented death to me like this encounter.
All of a sudden, my furrowed brow gave way to a subtle grin. Don’t get me wrong: I miss my dad immensely. But, I realized this form that I stared at was truly not Dad. He was gone. I was staring at an empty shell: a chrysalis.
My mind went to an encounter at Jesus’ tomb the morning of his resurrection. I will let Luke tell the story . . .
“On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?”
Granted, Dad did not rise from the dead, as Jesus had, but the parallel was uncanny. He was gone. What was left was a collapsed shell. At that moment I heard a voice say, “Why are you looking for a butterfly inside an empty chrysalis?”
Birth had just taken place.
And I rejoice.
-Sam Augsburger
