Today is Friday, January 9th, 2004; Karen's Korner #215

This is a "Chicken Soup for the Soul" daily email, which I have had for more than a year.  It is hanky one. Meaningful that it is set in Iowa. Not all hanky ones are bad ones, when we work on God's timetable and not our limited one. Thank God that He chooses to "talk" with each of us, now and then, in special ways that make sense only to us personally:

 


              I'm Okay, Mom and Dad
              By Lark Whittemore Ricklefs

     When I returned home from the funeral of a church
member, my grown daughter, Jenny, asked me about the
service.  I had been very moved by a story the priest told
about a dragonfly, so I shared it with Jen.
     A group of water bugs was talking one day about how
they saw other water bugs climb up a lily pad and disappear
from sight.  They wondered where the other bugs could have
gone.  They promised one another that if one of them ever
went up the lily pad and disappeared, it would come back
and tell the others where it had gone.
     About a week later one of the water bugs climbed up
the lily pad and emerged on the other side.  As it sat
there, it transformed into a dragonfly.  Its body took on
an iridescent sheen, and four beautiful wings sprouted from
its back.  The dragonfly flapped its wings and took off in
flight, doing loops and spins through the sunlit sky.  In
the midst of its joyful flight, it remembered the promise
it had made to return and tell the other bugs where it had
gone.  So the dragonfly swooped down to the surface of the
water and tried to reenter the water, but try as it would,
it could not return.
     The dragonfly said to itself, 'Well, I tried to keep
my promise, but even if I did return, the others wouldn't
recognize me in my new glorious body.  I guess they will
just have to wait until they climb the lily pad to find out
where I have gone and what I have become.'
     When I had finished relating the short story, my
daughter said, with tears running down her cheeks, "Mom,
that's really beautiful!"  I agreed, and we talked for a
while about it.
     Two days later, early Sunday morning, Jenny came into
my room, waking me to say good-bye before leaving for work
at a resort on Lake Okoboji.  I hugged and kissed her and
told her I would see her that night when I joined her for a
week's vacation at the lake.  I asked her if she had eaten
breakfast and if she was wide awake, as we had been out
late the night before.  I knew she was tired.  "Yes, Mom,
I'll see you later!"
     Several hours later, our worst nightmare began.  Jenny
had been involved in a head-on collision and was flown to
Sioux Falls, South Dakota.  Thoughts crowded in on me: 'Why
hadn't I fixed her breakfast?  Did I tell her I loved her? 
If I'd kept her with me a few minutes longer, would things
have turned out differently?  Why hadn't I hugged her a
little longer?  Why hadn't I kept her home with me that
summer instead of letting her work at the lake?  Why?  Why? 
Why?'
     We flew to Sioux Falls and arrived at noon.  Our Jen
was hurt mortally, and at ten o'clock that night, she died. 
If God had given me a choice, I would have traded places
with her in a second.  Jenny had so much to give this
world.  She was so bright, beautiful and loving.
     On Friday of that week, my husband and I drove to the
lake to see family, and we stopped to see where the
accident had occurred.  I don't remember a lot, but I know
I was hysterical trying to figure out what had happened and
why.
     Leaving the scene of the accident, I asked my husband
to take me to a greenhouse, as I needed to be around
beautiful flowers.  I just couldn't face anyone yet.
     Walking to the back of the hothouse, I heard the
fluttering of wings as if a bird or hummingbird was hitting
the top of the roof.  I was looking at a beautiful rose
when a beautiful, large dragonfly landed within arm's
length of me.  I stood there looking at this lovely
creature, and I cried.  My husband walked in.  I looked at
him and said, "Jenny is telling us that she's okay."  We
stood and looked at the lovely dragonfly for a long time,
and as we walked out of the hothouse, the dragonfly
remained on the rose.
     A couple of weeks later, my husband came running into
the house telling me to come outside quickly.  When I
walked out our door, I could not believe what I saw.  There
were hundreds of dragonflies flying in front of our house
and between ours and the neighbor's.  I have never seen
that many dragonflies at once in town, and the strangest
thing about it was that they were only by our house.
     There is no way these two experiences were just
coincidences.  They were more than that.  They were
messages from Jen.
     Each time I see a dragonfly, beautiful memories of my
daughter kiss my grieving heart.



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