Bullshit to Butterflies

By Sheila Burke

BULLSH*T TO BUTTERFLIES is the unfiltered story of Shane Burke, a simple man who broke the cycle of trauma and created a beautiful life from nothing. You will laugh, you will cry; you will feel hope and sadness.

A memoir written by the love of his life, Sheila, wife of 32 years, this book was born on the advice of their adult children, a hospice social worker, and good friends.

Over the years, Shane learned to grapple with patience, generate a positive attitude, and rally support for the underdogs of the world—even during the most difficult times of his life. He found humor in everything and always aimed to enjoy life, and greatly encouraged others to do the same. He was a man who beat the odds all his life until cancer came calling. In his youth, he picked himself up and became the example he was missing of what a good person should be and showed the world what that looked like. And approaching his death, he gifted us a glimpse behind the veil. His experiences were a comfort to him and his family until his last breath.

His story teaches us how to live—as well as how to die—with courage, dignity, and grace.

BULLSH*T TO BUTTERFLIES will make you think. About your own death and enduring the death of those you love greatly. Shane’s story is a good reminder to cherish every moment we have in this world—and those whom we love in it. Through all the turmoil this man endured in his life, he kept going until he simply couldn’t go anymore. What those who loved him realized is that he was always teaching. Always learning. Always curious. Always grateful. When forced to face his own mortality, none of that changed. This is the very real story of a very ordinary man. He could just as well be you or I. This is a book for people who want to understand the plight of cancer, the challenges of facing death, and how to comfort the dying. You will take away much more than the story of this man. You will glean information on how to have a good death for yourself or for someone you love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sheila Burke
• Release date: Apr 12, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005871154

Sheila Burke

Sheila Burke was born in 1965 and has lived in Ohio her whole life. Sheila and her husband have been happily married and chasing dreams together since 1989.Sheila has been on a journey of self-discovery for many years. She has an open mind, loves to read and enjoys learning though a variety of subjects. Zen-Sational Living is Sheila's first book and was a long time in the making. It is not her own personal story, but rather a road map for others starting out on their own personal journey of self-discovery.Sheila's books include Enriched Heart (published June 2016 available on Amazon), Chorus of Souls, Booyah Spirit, and Zensational Living. She also has several picture books as well as journals and a ZenSational Planner for those who enjoy recording their days.

Book preview

BULLSH*T TO BUTTERFLIES

Lessons in Breaking Cycles, Living Your Best

Life, and Dying from Cancer Anyway

A memoir by

SHEILA M. BURKE

©Sheila M. Burke, 2021

All Rights Reserved

Published by OmSweetOm Publishing

Cover Design by Kelsey Jae Burke

Journal and Hospice Chapters are a collective effort of Sheila Burke, Alan Burke, Kelsey Burke, and Kaylee Green and were recorded in real time.

Smashwords License Statement

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please visit your favorite ebook retailer to purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Epigraph credits: Excerpt from THE ALCHEMIST by Paulo Coelho, copyright ©1988 by Paulo Coelho. English translation copyright © 1993 by Paulo Coelho and Alan R. Clarke. Used by permission of HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved. Excerpt from RAINBOW IN THE CLOUD: THE WISDOM AND SPIRIT OF MAYA ANGELOU by Maya Angelou, copyright © 2014 by the estate of Maya Angelou. Used by permission of Random House, and imprint and division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved. Excerpt from ANTHES by Schuyler Peck copyright © by Schuyler Peck Used by permission of Schuyler Peck. All rights reserved. Excerpt from CANCER RESEARCH 101: When Dealing with Cancer, Loser Language Doesn’t Work, April 5, 2013. Used by permission of Michael A. Wosnick. All rights reserved. Excerpt from When Someone You Love Dies, There is No Such Thing as Moving On. TEDxAdelphiUniversity Garden City New York, March 2017. Used by permission of Kelley Lynn. All rights reserved. Permission to use cover photo with Cleveland Clinic logo on the hospital gown by Cleveland Clinic Branding office L. Radigan (image copyright 2020 Sheila Burke)

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written consent of the copyright holder or the publisher, except the case of brief quotations or critical articles or reviews. The events and conversations in this book have been set down to the best of the author's ability, although some names may have been omitted to protect the privacy of individuals.

Library of Congress Card Number – Pending

Bullshit to Butterflies: Lessons in Breaking Cycles, Living Your Best Life, and Dying from Cancer Anyway / Sheila M. Burke 2021 Om Sweet Om Publishing

Deepest gratitude to Dr. Lanea Keller, Dr. Allison Early, Erin Porinsky, RN, and Megan Hufendick for seeing the man before the cancer. Thank you for your compassion, patience, clarity, and for giving Shane room to express himself. Your humanity is beautiful. I will remember you always.

In loving memory of Shane Burke

Great things can happen when we continue to tell the stories of those we have lost. Each of us can be the person that changes the message for someone else about grief, love, and loss. That is how change happens.

—Kelley Lynn, TEDx talk speaker, author, My Husband is Not a Rainbow

Contents

Dedication

Preface

The Man Who Has My Heart

The Journal

Hospice Begins

Does anyone else here see Brian?

The Words that Followed

The Obituary

Opening Remarks at the Funeral

The Eulogy

Closing Words

The Graveside Service

My Afterthoughts on Cancer

My Afterthoughts on Dying

About the Author

Preface

Originally I chronicled my husband Shane's cancer journey so that I would not forget anything. Life was happening so fast. I wanted to make sure I recorded everything in real-time so I did not have to second-guess myself on the who's or the where's or the when's of any moment. This book came to be when I mentioned the journal during a check-in call from Shane's social worker, Megan, shortly after he passed away. She inquired if I would publish the journal. And that it could be something others find helpful.

I thought about it and was quite apprehensive. I've published a few books, but this is something awfully personal. Then, one evening as I was having a good cry, I stumbled upon a TEDx talk by author Kelley Lynn. It was about loss. How to move through, or move with, a loss rather than trying to move on—which is impossible. She talked about the importance of telling the stories of our loved ones. Great things can happen when we continue to tell the stories of those we have lost. Each of us can be the person that changes the message for someone else about grief, love, and loss. That is how change happens. 1 I found her to be incredibly inspiring. And, so, here we are. My mission is to honor his legacy by never forgetting his fight. Shane's life was the epitome of overcoming. Cancer was merely the final chapter. He was an ordinary man with an extraordinary heart.

I hope my words give you a sense of the importance to living life with kindness and compassion, embracing death as a part of life, and breaking cycles so that abuse and pain are not passed down like brown eyes and thick hair.2 I hope these pages illuminate the physical process of dying in those with a disease as well as the significance of friends and family (past and present) showing up to walk our dying home. If it helps just one person with their plight, I have done well.

[1. Kelly Lynn: When Someone You Love Dies, There is No Such Thing as Moving On. TEDxAdelphiUniversity Garden City New York, March 2017 Kelley Lynn is the author of the book My Husband is Not a Rainbow

2. BBC.com March 26, 2019 Can the legacy of trauma be passed down the generations? by Martha Henriques]

The Man Who Has My Heart

So, I love you because the entire universe conspired to help me find you.

—Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

Cancer was just one drop of difficulty in Shane's life. A mere smattering in the big picture. For you to have a better grasp, I'd like to tell you about his life.

Shane made his entrance into the world in 1964. He was the fourth of five children born to Alan and Jackie. His little sister Kelley came along about two years after he was born. Shane's early childhood was loving and he had, from all accounts, a normal family life. The family did a lot of outdoorsy stuff like boating and fishing and camping.

Then, like so many families, divorce came into play. At the time I think Shane was around ten or twelve years old. The two oldest siblings (a brother and a sister,) were around high-school-age—which is perhaps the most critical stage of personal growth and learning who you are. It is a time of paramount reflection and evaluation. Their formative adolescent years were pretty solid so they would probably be okay. He had another brother, Brian, who was not quite two years older than him. The three younger kids, Brian, Shane, and Kelley, were still growing and forming. They would have a rough go from this point forward.

Dad had a drinking problem and mom tried her level best to keep everything together for her and her five children. It wasn't easy, as I'm sure you can imagine. Shane always told me his father pinned all his hopes for the future on his oldest brother and sister. Nearest to college-age, their father could see a future ahead for them. They were given encouragement and a push toward success. The other three children were still pretty young, and they would not receive parental assistance, faith, or enthusiasm to succeed.

Pretty much all of the child-rearing fell on mom. Jackie was really an amazing woman. Despite the fact that she worked two jobs as well as side jobs, they still had to go on food stamps. The two older kids were embarrassed at the thought of using a welfare ticket for their school lunch, so Shane recalls them begging their mom for lunch money. The younger three siblings didn't mind; many of their friends were also on the program. He also remembers the kindness of his friends' mothers who had unselfishly set a place for him at their dinner table when his mom was working.

Mom would load the kids into the station wagon and take them on regular, adventurous, road trips to the Rocky River Metropark system. Free fun, she used to recount. She instilled a deep love and respect for nature in her children. She taught them a lot on those day trips. They learned about habitats and their role in our ecosystem. They learned the importance of clean water and air. They understood why we don't litter and why we protect and care for our planet. They learned all this while playing. The younger children came away with deep affection and admiration for nature. As adults, it was fun watching them all enjoying outdoor activities more than any other activity. Brian with his fishing and boating, Kelley with her love of camping, bonfires, and walking the beach with her dog looking for beach glass, and of course Shane, who was comfortable doing anything outdoors. When he grew up, Shane was an avid gardener, golfer, he loved to play all sports, loved the beach, the forest, and hiking. He was one of those people that were naturally talented at nearly everything they attempted. We would spend hours stargazing or figuring out what shapes the clouds were. I can still remember how sore our necks were coming into the house after a summer night of stargazing in our driveway. We went to hundreds of parks and visited waterfalls and hiked trails. He got his amazing love for the outdoors, and animals, from his momma.

Shane was amazing at sports. In his youth, he was short and scrawny, but he was fast and accurate. His hand-eye coordination was off the charts. One day he picked up a tennis racquet. His father saw what a great talent he had for tennis and quickly hired a coach for him. Soon he was competing and winning. He won a lot. He was a heartbeat from turning pro.

For a number of years, his father picked him up for visits and tennis lessons. Shane began to realize that he was the only one his dad was spending time with. His father was not seeing the other younger two children or taking them on visits. That bothered Shane. Even as a child, he was perceptive enough of right and wrong to understand that what his father was doing was wrong.

By then, Shane's dad was an alcoholic. Tennis matches became unbearable. Drunk at every match, the father completely embarrassed his son. He was loud, angry, and belligerent. He was always shit-faced. This caused a lot of stress for Shane and he told his father he didn't want to play tennis any longer.

His dad was so upset that his son wasn't going to be a star that he gave him a new nickname—Asshole. That's what he called him. And that's what he had to answer to.

Shane and Brian shared a bedroom in their mother's house. Brian found himself in more than his fair share of trouble. Their father would get wind of the issue and pay a visit, drunk, in the middle of the night. More than once Shane woke up to his dad punching Brian in the face. Their father treated their oldest brother as the golden boy. He could do no wrong. He did, but there was always a way out of it for him. For Al, a son in college meant success—all strings would be pulled to make that happen.

The younger boys never were afforded that. They paid dearly for the trouble they got into. The rest of their lives would reflect that. But Brian and Shane also learned something invaluable from the way their father had treated people. They learned how to treat a woman properly. They learned how to treat people less fortunate than themselves. They learned to respect. They learned how to love. They learned how to navigate their relationship with their father and figured out that they did not want to become him. They would both grow to be rich in heart, not in the pocket. For these two, that was gold.

Since I have known Shane, he has always wanted everyone to succeed. Not on his terms, but their own. I think he learned this as a result of his time with his dad. He understood that nothing would ever be handed to him. He would never have it easy. He was told by his father at an early age that he could grow up one of two ways: like his oldest brother or like his brother Brian. That always bothered him. For Shane that meant one brother was loved and respected, while the other was not.

Jump ahead a few years and Shane ended up in my neck of the woods. He transferred out of Cleveland Public Schools because of fighting and into the suburb where I was from. His dad and his stepmom lived in the same city as my family.

We went to the same high school, and that is how we met—in homeroom. A change of venue didn't mean life got much better. Shane remembers being woken up in the middle of the night by his father who had come home drunk. Hey Asshole, his father would slur, I know you are awake! Get up, Asshole! Shane took up sleeping inside of the car in the garage every night just to be able to get some sleep. His father never found him there. All of those years of mental abuse from his dad and Shane never held any of that against him. He hated the addiction but loved his father dearly. He always forgave him.

In homeroom, our seats were near each other. He was cute and funny and all the girls swooned over him. He came from inner-city Cleveland so he had a bad-boy reputation attached to him. He was a sweetheart, but he was a scrapper.

There was a young man in our homeroom with Down syndrome. He sat a couple of seats ahead of me. Two other boys in our homeroom were real jerks and kept flicking him on the back of his ear causing his ear to be beet-red. Shane and his friend Scott had had enough and when the other boys wouldn't stop flicking at the boy's ears, they got up, picked the bully boys up out of their chairs, and slammed them onto the floor. They got sent to the principal's office but the rest of the class cheered. This wasn't the first time he stuck up for a special needs student and it wouldn't be the last. That is how I knew he was a good person. He didn't care about anyone at that moment except that boy with Down syndrome. He really hated bullies. If there was an underdog, Shane was on their side, always. My guess is that because, in his formative years, he was the underdog.

Shane had an amazing, innate gift. He was able to see the dignity of others. He would get extremely frustrated when others couldn't do the same.

I always thought he was super cute in high school. There was just something about him, but I just couldn't quite put my finger on it. But, there definitely was something about that boy.

While in high school, Shane had a girlfriend and I had a boyfriend. Ironically my boyfriend cheated on me with Shane's girlfriend who was cheating on him! I have always wondered if that was a sign that we were destined to be together—just not at that particular time.

Unfortunately, in the last year of high school, Shane got into some trouble and was sent away to prison. I had no idea why, but I did feel sorry for him. I didn't know much about this boy but I did feel bad for him.

We both lived our lives, sowed our oats, and five years after high school found ourselves at the same corner store. He and his friend Ray were outside the entrance tending to their bike which had a broken chain, or a flat tire, or something. I gave them, and their bike, a ride back to Ray's house. We hit it off as if the last five years hadn't existed. We exchanged phone numbers and went out on a date that evening. I picked him up. I always felt it was better that way (I could leave if need be.) I think we might have gone to a bar for a few beers, but honestly, I don't remember for sure. I can remember the first time we kissed that night, it felt as if fireworks went off in my head. It was as if that kiss unlocked a door to a magical world. It was a feeling you get when you remember something that you've been trying to recall for a real long time and, sighing with relief, you say, Yes! That's it! Everything about him seemed right and, as Stevie Nicks wrote, hauntingly familiar. The feelings were incredibly intense, an immediate connection. It was as if the universe had this giant lit, flashing arrow pointing at each other's head that spelled out, Right here! This is the way! Everything about him felt like home. The way he smelled, the features of his face, his touch, the electricity, the depth behind his eyes—everything rang a bell for me. Everything felt magnified for both of us; every touch conjured up a yearning for something we couldn't quite put our fingers on, a memory, perhaps, from a long ago time or place. We knew right away this was something pretty special.

Shane was a little apprehensive about filling me in on

Reviews for Bullshit to Butterflies

[Jeff Burke · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

The name of the book should be changed to, "From Bullshit to Butterflies to Bullshit!" Lots of bullshit and lies in the preview (free reading section) from an angry person's perspective. Angry because Sheila and Shane missed their mothers funeral, and blame their two older siblings for "their" choice.