A contemplative experience

This summer, five years after my Dad's death, I went to Niagara to visit my Mum. While there, I asked to be driven to the cemetery to be left alone for a while at the gravesite. I knew I wanted to talk with my Dad. Beyond that, I had no idea why I had made such a request.

Once there, I thought, "This is crazy. Dad's not here. He's gone on to be with the Lord. I'm talking to some bones and a headstone. This doesn't make a whole lot of sense." But deep within, I knew it was something I needed to do.

I looked around. There was a fresh gravesite piled high with flowers two plots over from my Dad. Between his grave and that, lying by itself on the grass, was a perfect red rose. I assume it had rolled off the pile because that was the only source of flowers in sight. But it was no longer part of the pile. So I retrieved it. Red roses have a special meaning around my Dad's death. The only flowers at the funeral were a single spray of red roses laid on the coffin. My girls each brought one home to remember. I never did that. Now I had a single red rose in my hand. I laid it on the headstone. It seemed to belong there. And I began to talk.

I told Dad I really wished he had hung on long enough for us to have reached the hospital in time to be able to say goodbye. I told him about Mum and how she abused us as kids. I asked how come he never knew so he could stop it. I told him I loved him. For forty minutes or so I talked and cried and talked some more.

When I had no more to say, I went to wait on a nearby bench til family came back to pick me up. I could see Dad's headstone from the bench. As I looked over, a butterfly appeared from somewhere close to his gravesite and flew by my right shoulder then out of sight. Butterflies are special to me. The fact that they die as caterpillars and rise as these beautiful creatures always speaks to me of resurrection. This one let me see him and then was gone. And I realized that it was time to let Dad go. So I said, "Goodbye Dad", and from somewhere deep in my spirit let him go.

That day, I had two special contemplative moments, one with the rose and another with the butterfly. I have hinted at their meaning, but I have no words for how they touched something so deep in my soul that even I don't know the depth of their impact. A non-contemplative would perhaps say that these were coincidences into which I had read something more. But a contemplative knows when they are reading meaning into something. And they know when the meaning finds them, coming out of a deeper part of our reality than we normally experience. This day, I touched that reality.