We are coming up on eight months since we lost Bethany. I know the hurt that everyone who knew her feels, even today. My own pain is so hard to fathom. She was not just a wonderful part of my life as she was for so many… she was an entire half of me. She was my promise and my hope of all things to come. When we buried her, half of my heart went in the ground with her.
I have tried to stay positive along the way, though at times it has been difficult. At times, I doubt I could have failed any worse. I have reveled in irregular heartbeats… praying it to be a sign that I wouldn’t be stuck in this world without her for too long. I have danced in the lightning, begging God, “Thy Will be done… Please let this be Your Will.”
There have been other times when I have done better. I have set lofty goals. I have worked towards some and abandoned others. I have dreamed. I have laughed. I have smiled. I have tried to be all the things there are left to be: a son, a friend, a doggy-daddy, a human being.
I’ve made promises from the depths of my heart. Some thought me crazy for them and maybe they weren’t too far off the mark. But those promises were truth and it can never be wrong to speak the truth. Truth is beautiful music too seldom played. I heard the song of my promises within my heart and can never apologize for releasing them into the world. The world needs more songs like that to drown out the ugliness of everything less that pure love.
Yes, there have been ups and downs in this journey. Unfortunately even the ups were merely highs within a very low valley. For nearly eight months I have failed to smile with unbridled joy. I have laughed, but not from the core of my soul. I have enjoyed moments of greatness but they have always been tainted with a bitterness in not having her there to share them with me.
It has been a valley. When I came down from Max Patch Bald without her that June day, I just continued my descent. Where I find myself all this time later is a very dark, cold, and lonely place.
The moment Bethany died, I began a game of catch up with her. As ruinous as a cancer, my grief has consumed me and I have been content to allow it to extinguish everything goog within. For 8 months now, I have been dying.
But then…
A series of events have rocked my foundation. In November, an old and dear friend shared a beautiful book with me which dealt with life after life. This is no book report… I’ll not bore you with the details. I’ll only tell you that I came away from reading it filled with a glimpse of joy and affirmations in the belief of the solid and tangible nature of my ever continuing relationship with Bethany. It was the first piece of a puzzle with had to be solved in order for me to accept the vast yet temporary gap between her world and my own.
I began to write the book I’ve known I have owed her since the first night she did not come home. It is a work in progress. While the passion in me laments each pause in the creation, as each day comes, the story takes new directions along the path which I pray will lead to a near perfect testament to the beauty of us.
I reconnected with old friends… found reminders of joys I had forsaken and written off as once-now-never. I think that book allowed me to understand that I don’t have to live life punishing myself, as Bethany could not be in a better world and since she loves me, she wants the same for me.
I have experienced goodness in its purest form… through the laughter of children who I have been fortunate enough to gain the honorable role of friend. They could not understand right now, but their smiles have not been the bitter reminders of what Bethany and I will never have, but reminders of all the beauty and goodness I’ve so often spoken of Bethany finding all around her. My new friends, tiny as they are, have been a part of my salvation.
Then the coup de grace of my suffering came in a simple movie. 127 Hours tells the story of Aron Ralston, the hiker who was forced to cut off his own arm after becoming trapped by a rock. I knew as soon as I sat down to watch it that I was in for something powerful.
Aron Ralston was something of a hero to Bethany. He had survived against the odds while experiencing some of the very same sites she had dedicated such a portion of her life to experiencing. From some of the opening scenes, every inch of the of the Moab, Utah expanse was a reminder of… well… I was as if I was given a glimpse of a world Bethany had once known and loved.
The book detailing Aron’s brush with death… Bethany used to listen to the book on CD religiously as she washed dishes. She was enchanted by it.
I watched that movie, convinced that Sweet Bethany was sitting by my side, watching it with me. I could literally feel her all around me… almost inside me. I have felt it before, but never with such intensity or for such an extended amount of time. In wave after wave I was filled with an understanding… a message I believe she would have liked me to know a long time ago: It is okay if I stop dying for now. We have forever. I shouldn’t be in a hurry.
I get it now Baby. I finally heard you. Thank you. It’s like breathing for the first time.
In my heart, Bethany will always remain my wife. I will never love her less; will always love her more. No matter what beauty I find in the world, none will match hers. Even from beyond she radiates a purity I could never comprehend, much less hope to replace.
But now it is time to stop dying and to stop living dead. I’ve used the line from Shawshank Redemption before… I think I’m finally ready to mean it. Get busy living, or get busy dying. I choose life.
This blog will be changing. I hope it will become more of what I set out for it to be. It is not a place for me to mourn her death, but to celebrate her life. I hope that my coming posts will return to featuring more of the greatness she produced while she was with us.
Anyway… for now… this –
Bethany, I have thanked you a million times over and yet could never thank you enough. Now I feel the grace of what I am prepared to be your final gift to me in this life, an understanding that I still get to live it. I can never thank you enough. Thank you my Love… thank you for teaching me to live. Love Always, Richard
Bethany (Lott) Butler 