The Unwanted Tissue Box

    I wrote this following Dad's death on October 3, 2015 but felt the grief, especially for my mother, was too raw and painful for her to read. She overheard my sister and me discussing it and wanted to read it. Several times she has mentioned how it captured the reality of Dad's passing. At the 8th anniversary of his promotion to glory, it seemed  fitting to repost.

As my father’s health deteriorated, changes occurred. His eating time, with my assistance, increased from 45 minutes to 90 minutes as I urged him to swallow by massaging his throat. Dad tried with all his might to take in nourishment three times a day.

                His coughing and choking worsened and became more frequent, much to my despair. Each night I prayed for Dad to be strengthened. This prayer seemed to be going unanswered. 

The magnitude of this reality forced a tear from my eye. For uncanny, practical purposes, I managed to handle my inner emotional upheaval without tears. As I have aged, tears have led to excruciating headaches for me. Bottom line - I try to avoid tears.

I couldn't allow more than a tear or two to trickle from my eyes since I had to feed Dad that morning. Silently, I breathed a prayer for health, strength, and stamina so I could care for him in the best way possible.

I reached instinctively for a tissue from the box on the end table closest to Dad’s bed. With my back turned to his bed, I looked out the living room’s large window as I made a comment about the beautiful sunshine warming the autumn morning, hoping to hide any tears from him. Just at that point, I realized I had pulled the last tissue from the box. I spoke loudly so his impaired ears could hear me, since my back remained turned to conceal my emotions, “Dad, we’re out of tissue. I need to go get a new box in the north room so I can blow my nose. Ok?”

I scuttled to retrieve a new box of tissue and grabbed for one with blue water pools and droplets pictured on each side. Unsuccessfully, I tugged, finally, deciding to get the most available box. It had a beige background – far too mundane a color for an already depressing day.

As I carried the gloomy-hued box into the living room, I pressed out the opening, drew out the first tissue, and blew my nose, precariously holding the box under my arm. As I placed the new tissue box on the end table, the pattern on the box leaped off the dull background. Butterflies were scattered over each visible side of the tissue box.

A Butterfly from the Dull Tissue Box

My heart sank. The butterfly reminded me of change. Those butterflies all started as larvae or caterpillars. Then my mind rolled to a video I showed third graders to help them understand the metamorphosis of an egg into a caterpillar into a cocoon and finally transformed into a stunning butterfly. I recalled the narrator of the teaching video mentioning the pupa (cocoon) appeared to have no life in it as it remained perfectly still just before its transformation.

I consciously shook my head. That "metamorphic" thought resounded too closely to Dad’s present reality. Dysphasia, shallow breathing, and increased hours of sleeping by Dad mimicked in my mind the later life of the pupa. 

The scripture verse came to mind from 2 Corinthians 4:16 – So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.

It was obvious that my father’s body was weakening. I continued to pray for him but added the prayer for his inner self to be strengthened. Since Dad had his faith in Jesus, he had an inner self indwelt by the spirit of God Himself. (The Bible repeatedly indicates a person who has not committed to follow Jesus is dead in sins. There's nothing to be strengthened.) I realized the new way to pray. My prayer became an expression of Ephesians 3:16  I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His spirit in your inner being.

 As difficult as it was to admit, just as the butterfly in the cocoon was strengthened until it developed to a point to emerge as a gorgeous butterfly, so God was strengthening Dad’s inner being. He could not express verbally to us of his renewed inner strength, but by faith, we could trust that God was accomplishing this for him.

The moment he took his final breath, his inner being strengthened with power through His spirit left behind the empty cocoon, his weakened body. The metamorphosis had been completed.

Each of us who has trusted Jesus has His power within us. May we pray to be strengthened in our inner beings with our greatest desire to have His power at work in us to live for Him. Scripture bears out the end result is peace, that inner calmness even in trials. Then when our time to “emerge from the cocoon” comes, we will welcome the metamorphosis.