I heard this week that it takes 5 generations to complete the annual migration of the Monarch butterfly. This stayed with me because it instantly it made me think of our own spiritual journeys. Especially as it relates to the growth that evolves through family generations.
My Aunt Kitt passed away last week. Although she had suffered from a long-time illness, she passed rather suddenly. I was surprised at the shock I initially felt when my cousin Neil called with the news. We had all watched her suffer silently as her body slowly failed her. She began to disappear at family gatherings. There was a time when she brought such a presence to the holidays. Her Christmas Eve parties were famous. She would start cooking days in advance to get ready for the festivities. Their modest house would be packed, wall to wall, with family and friends. Growing up, it was one of my favorite parts of Christmas, almost as good as opening presents on Christmas Day.
But over time, the parties became smaller. The food she cooked became less. Fewer people were invited. That was one of the ways I measured her illness. The last Christmas we spent together, it was just close family that filled the living room and sat around the Christmas tree. For me, it was just as special and I’m grateful we made the effort to go because it was the last time I saw her. My last memory of my Aunt Kitt will be her smiling on the couch, surrounded by her grandchildren.
There are things we don’t like to talk about when people are alive. The darkness that exists in everyone’s family is rarely acknowledged. It’s just easier to dismiss the pain and suffering than it is to recognize it.
It wasn’t until Kitt’s funeral that I heard the mention of the heartbreak she felt growing up. Details weren’t discussed, but from the words of my uncle, she could no longer overcome the burden she carried and that she died of a broken heart. I tried to imagine what kind of childhood could haunt someone to the point of death. She never recovered from her sister’s passing, who was the one person she clung to as a child. They were their own protectors. The loss of her sister left her out in the elements alone. There was no one she would allow to protect her from the ghosts of the past, and it was those ghosts that finally came for her in the end.
But I look at the way she lived her life, how she was a wife and a mother, and I feel she made headway on the journey toward healing. I look at her children and how they have grown up to be strong, beautiful adults. I can see her journey continued in their own lives. They are getting married and having children and taking what she taught them and reaching further than she could have in her own life. With their generation, a little more of the darkness is snuffed out by the light of their love.
This is the journey of the Monarch. Becoming a butterfly is only a part of the journey. The real growth comes during the migration towards warmth and forgiveness. We might not live to see the promised land, but we must take what we learn from those who came before and expand on the life knowledge. We must teach our children to be better than ourselves, to provide them with a life we didn’t have and give them better, sharper tools to fight the darkness they inherit in their blood.
This is what makes the very honorable journey of the Monarch.
