Sara Schaefer

I just got back from the Schaefer family annual trip to the Outer Banks.

This place is magic. We rent a large, old cottage.

The location is incredible - it's situated on the skinniest part of the Outer Banks, with nothing but a dune between us and the ocean, and - on the other side - nothing but a 2 lane road between us and the sound.

So, we watch the sun rise on the Atlantic (the above picture taken from the back deck),

...and the sun set on the Currituck Sound (the above picture taken from the front deck).

We laugh, we play, we drink, we eat. This year, I cried a lot too, because this was the first year without my mom, and coincidentally, the adrenaline of it all was just beginning to wear off...and I have now learned, this is when the real hurting begins. I had been wishing, praying, wanting with every part of me, to feel her presence, to see some sort of sign that everything indeed was going to be okay. I had started to say to myself, this is just what it means to painfully, intensely miss someone. You want them back so much, that you'll take even the slightest feeling that they are near, or a suggestion of a hint that somewhere, somehow, they still live on - whether that place be something called heaven, or across the universe, scattered into space in a million tiny pieces that all connect back to you somehow - it doesn't matter, at least it's something.

Side note: if the above isn't heaven, I'm not sure what is.

In the weeks after her passing, it seemed that every other crazy church lady in Virginia was having some spiritual experience with my mom's ghost, and I thought, surely, if my mom is making the rounds in the local Junior Women's Club, you think she'd stop by the ole Sara brain sometime. For the first month, I'd wake up in the middle of the night, startled by a rustle in the room, and stare into the shadows hoping the outline of a ghostly mom would appear.

I mean, better it be my mom than that creepy preacher guy from Poltergeist, correct?

But I felt nothing. I saw nothing. Silence.

Usually when we go to the beach, the weather is tricky. It's the beginning of fall, it's hurricane season, it's coastal North Carolina. But this week was incredible. No clouds, no rain, no cold wind keeping you out of the water and under a towel.

At one point, my sister thanked my mom for getting up in God's business to force a week of good weather. (Because truly, this is my mom: she don't care who you are, you're going to do as she says.) It was a nice thought, yes, but it wasn't giving me that feeling I so badly craved.

At my mom's memorial service, a woman named Amy told us about a dream she had, in the early light hours, the morning of July 17. It was about my mom. My mom told Amy she was going to be with Jesus. Amy said "okay Billie." And then my mom said "Is there anything you want?" Still dreaming, Amy replied, "Send me some butterflies." That was the morning my mom died. A few days later, Amy saw a butterfly dancing around her car. When I heard this story, it was very touching, but once again, I didn't feel my mom. It was just another borderline unbelievable story, the kind of thing someone at your office forwards to you with the subject line: "THIS GAVE ME CHILLS!", immediately followed by a sentence in the text saying "Forward this to everyone you love!"

Of course, if you *REALLY* love your friends, you'll need some tasteful clipart to attach to that e-mail.

I must admit that butterflies are special to me, my mom, and my sisters. It's a long story, but it has something to do with Jesus, tattoos, and chaos theory. I also must say that in all the years I've been to the beach (almost all the years of my life), I've never seen a butterfly down on the beach by the ocean. But this year, I did.

Every day. The same yellow butterfly would flutter around us as we sat on the beach, building sand castles, fishing, reading books, drinking beer at 10 a.m., watching the sea gulls. There it was - each day, 7 days in a row - tiny, frantically fighting against an ocean's wind to make its appearance. About half way through the week, when I saw it again, I was watching it dance around and then float off into the distance. At that moment I felt an immense wave of warm calm wash over me. It was like someone had thrown me a life preserver just as I was about to go under. It was the feeling of my mom holding me.

It occurred to me I hadn't felt that way in almost 4 years...cancer in a family has a way of feeling like a shipwreck. You get the news and *thunderclap*....everyone is scattered, thrashing around in the water, waiting for rescue. After four years of fighting to stay afloat, my mom was plucked from the dark waters and taken away from all that pain and suffering. Meanwhile, it sometimes seems as if we were left behind, still lost at sea. I might still be out there, but at least now I've got something to hold onto. Thanks mom.

My mom, Billie Schaefer, September 2006.

Okay, okay okay!!! EVERYBODY CALM DOWN. You can stop crying / forwarding this to your entire address book now. In case you were worried I was trying to turn myself into Dave Eggers, I will leave you with something else about the beach that I (and my mom) *really* appreciate:

If you truly love someone, THIS is what you should be sending them. CLASSY!