Quietly Making Noise

Originally posted on my LiveJournal 07/09/07

but if you could…do you think you would
trade in all the pain and suffering?
ah, but then you’d miss
the beauty of the light upon this earth
and the sweetness of the leaving

–Calling All Angels

Backstory:

I have a 200 cd jukebox with a shuffle feature.

My Dad died 6 years ago (6 years and 6 days ago, actually). His death was sudden and horrible. It left us all quite devastated.

The Sunday after he died, after all the gatherings were over and I was at home for the first time since he died with nowhere to be or go. I put the jukebox on shuffle and stepped out onto my front porch. I sat down on the steps and the first song to play was Calling All Angels by Jane Sidberry with kd lang. Just as she began to sing the line “a man is placed upon the steps…” a beautiful black butterfly with blue markings landed on the rail right beside my shoulder…so close I could see every detail of its body and wings. It sat there gently opening and closing its wings until she sang the lines “walk me through this one/don’t leave me alone” and then it fluttered off.

Since then any time I see a butterfly, I think of that moment.

/Backstory

The sadness of the cat dying was, of course, compounded with the sadness of it being so close to the anniversary of Dad’s death.

I went by the vet today to pick up Argyle’s ashes. They also do this thing where they take a paw print in plaster and give it to you with the ashes. I didn’t open the bag in the vet’s office because they have seen enough of me crying. I went out to the parking lot and pulled the box of ashes out (beautiful box too) and the paw print. As I pulled the ribbon on the box the paw print was in a black and blue butterfly landed on my shoulder…just for a second and then it flew around me and away.

I am reminded every day in so many ways how beautiful life is and how blessed I am, but today it seems a little more blessed and little more beautiful. I am grateful.

Calling All Angels

Santa Maria, Santa Teresa, Santa Anna, Santa Susannah
Santa Cecilia, Santa Copelia, Santa Domenica, Mary Angelica
Frater Achad, Frater Pietro, Julianus, Petronilla
Santa, Santos, Miroslaw, Vladimir
and all the rest

a man is placed upon the steps, a baby cries
and high above the church bells start to ring
and as the heaviness the body oh the heaviness settles in
somewhere you can hear a mother sing

then it’s one foot then the other as you step out onto the road
how much weight? how much weight?
then it’s how long? and how far?
and how many times before it’s too late?

calling all angels
calling all angels
walk me through this one
don’t leave me alone
calling all angels
calling all angels
we’re cryin’ and we’re hurtin’
and we’re not sure why…

and every day you gaze upon the sunset
with such love and intensity
it’s almost…it’s almost as if
if you could only crack the code
then you’d finally understand what this all means

but if you could…do you think you would
trade in all the pain and suffering?
ah, but then you’d miss
the beauty of the light upon this earth
and the sweetness of the leaving

calling all angels
calling all angels
walk me through this one
don’t leave me alone
callin’ all angels
callin’ all angels
we’re tryin’
we’re hopin’
we’re hurtin’
we’re lovin’
we’re cryin’
we’re callin’
’cause we’re not sure how this goes

Argyle and Savannah his last night