All He Ever Knew Was Love

Cayden Hughes Buttram was born along with his twin brother Cooper Andrew Buttrum on Monday night, July 10.  Cayden died on Wednesday, July 12.  Cayden’s parents, Lauren and Brad, knew he had an uphill battle.  A problem pregnancy, in utero issues that denied him needed nutrients, a premature birth at only 2 lbs, 13 oz, and the quick onset of an infection spelled trouble for Cayden.  His brother Cooper was a little bigger, had the necessary nutrients all along, and he is doing well.  But Cayden didn’t make it.

I don’t understand these things any more than you do.  Why does one twin live and the other die?  We know God knits us together in our mother’s womb.  We know we are fearfully and wonderfully made.  We know Jesus loves children … and then this.  As a pastor I’ve grieved with parishioners over a miscarriage and buried my share of babies.  Some, like Cayden, didn’t last long out of the womb.  Some fell victim to SIDS a year or two into life.  It’s all hard.  It all hurts.  It all leaves us with more questions than answers.

I woke up in the middle of the night with the Buttrums on my mind.  As I was laying there praying for the family, the Lord put a thought in my head about Cayden: “All he ever knew was love.”

                                                                                                                   

Since the pregnancy test came back positive, Cayden was loved—parents and doctors doing all the right things.

Upon his birth into this world on Monday, Cayden was loved.  Incubation, intubation, and IVs may not feel or look like love, but that’s what it is—love that fights for life and health and well-being.  There’s not a lot Mom, Dad, and family can do in this situation except pray and touch and speak life and love over the child.  That’s what they did.

And when Cayden shut his eyes in death on Wednesday, he was swept up into the arms of Jesus who loves him best of all.  I don’t know how all this works in heaven, but I do believe this: Cayden is experiencing the love of his Savior and the love of believing family that preceded him in death.  It is well with his soul.  And on the last day, his tiny body will be resurrected just like yours and mine.

In just two short days of life on this earth, all he ever knew was love.  He never experienced abuse of any kind.  He never dealt with the betrayal of a friend.  He never felt the sting of guilt over his sins.  Nobody ever broke his heart.  He never stood over the grave of a loved one who meant the world to him.  He never wrestled with feelings of failure.  I realize, as do you, that such things are all part of life, that they shape us into the persons we become, that wounds and scars hurt in the moment but can reap the benefits of maturity and a closer walk with Jesus.  Like his family, I wish Cayden could have lived a long full life.  But if you only get 28 weeks in the womb and two days in the world, all you ever know is love, and the only memories people have of you will be cherished ones, well … you’ve lived a pretty wonderful life.

Cayden, I can’t wait to meet you on the other side.

There's No Place Like Home

Well, we’re in.  Still unpacking boxes and deciding what goes where, but we’re in.  And, man, does it feel weird.  After 22 years in the same house, you know every creak and crack in the place.  You can practically move around with your eyes closed and still get where you’re going.  In the new place, I better keep my eyes open or I’ll run into walls and bump into stuff.  It’s going to take some time to get my bearings.

We loved our last home.  (Well, I had a love/hate relationship with it when I had to take care of the pool.)  We lived in that place for more than a third of our lives and more than half of our marriage.  We (that means Dayna) kept it in great.  It pays to have a wife who watches a lot of HGTV.  She always had some idea to make it better.

But a home is not so much about the floors and the roof and the curb appeal.  A home is about what goes on inside.  It’s about the memories.  And do we ever have memories associated with that place.  That’s the house where we celebrated high school and college graduations, the house where we celebrated the weddings of our children.  That’s the only house our seven grandkids know as Papa and Grammy’s house.  That’s the house where we spent 22 Christmases.  That’s the house where we prayed a lot of prayers, cried a lot of tears, and laughed more times than we can count.  That’s the house where our teenage kids brought their friends.  That’s the house where we watched a lot of Razorback and Cowboys and Orioles games.  That’s the house where we loved one cat and two dogs.  That’s the house where we spent five days without power during the great post-Christmas ice storm of 2000.  That’s the house where we always tried to keep Jesus at the center.  It’s been a good house.  It’s been our house.  I think it was Miranda Lambert who sang a song about “the house that built me.”  Well, this house didn’t build us, but our lives were shaped in numerous ways during our years there.

On Father’s Day weekend our whole family was together.  The kids wanted to say good-bye to the house.  We talked about some of our favorite memories in that house over the years.  The kids took a last look at their teenage rooms.  Everybody enjoyed the pool one more time.  It was more emotional than I thought it would be.

But now it’s time to move on, time to get a little better arranged space to accommodate our family of 13 when they are home.  It’s time to quit messing with a swimming pool loved by my wife, my kids, and my grandkids but not loved so much by me.  I don’t know how long we’ll live here.  I doubt it will be anywhere near 22 years.  In 22 years I’ll be 82 and my wife will be 80.  For all I know I’ll be dead.  We’ll make some memories in this new house, but it won’t be like the house in which you raise your kids.  My daughter summed it up pretty well before she left our house for the last time: “Every time I’ve come home since I left for college in 2000, I’ve always felt like I was coming to my house.  Now, I’ll feel like I’m coming to my parents’ house.”

And that’s where we are now: in her parents’ house.  Dayna is excited to make this house a home.  And she’ll get it done for sure.  I’m still a little depressed about the change.  But I’ll be okay.  Whether our address is Meadowmere Terrace or Blue Bell Court, as long as Dayna and Jesus are here it will be home.  That’s been good enough for almost 40 years.  It will be good enough till Jesus calls one of us to the home that’s really home, the home from which we will never move again.