No one gets out of here alive

As you may have heard, my father-in-law whom the missus' nephews fondly call "Coco," passed away last week due to complications brought about by a 2nd stroke. It was an experience for me seeing him move from our world to the afterlife in a span of days.

I'm not a superstitious person, but, his final journey of almost two weeks started with me seeing an enormous orange and brown butterfly resting on the front porch's armrest the night before he had his 2nd stroke. With awe, I took a picture of it on our digicam for later posting. At the hospital days after, I told DR of the wonder I saw. Surprised, he mentioned that they also saw a similar butterfly on the death of one or two of his relatives. Searching the 'net, I came across other tales relating of seeing butterflies after a loved one died. Further searching showed some believe that the butterfly is the symbol of the Resurrection, a transformation from death to eternal happiness with God. Well, I do feel that Coco is now "up" there so me seeing that butterfly turned out to be a good sign.

Butterflies aside, his death had reminded me again that we are just travelers here on earth ---just passing through. That all of us, no matter the stature, will eventually be met by the world's greatest equalizer ---Death. And by all our good and bad deeds, we will be judged accordingly.

"Death is more universal than life; everyone dies but not everyone lives." -A. Sachs