'Stop All the Clocks' ~ by W.H. Auden

 

Jason C. Butler was born on February 11, 1975 to Colleen and John Butler.  He grew up in Fair Oaks, California with his brother, Brent.  The family spent weekends at the lake, hiking the trails throughout California, camping at the coast, fishing, hunting for fossils anywhere they could, or spending time along the Oregon Coast.  Jason's father is perhaps our best personal contractor in town, and Jason's mother taught glass art at Bella Vista High School.  His parents bought a piece of property in Orangevale with a small farmhouse in 1976.  During the many family adventures, the family fell in love with the Oregon Coast.  They bought a house in Brookings, Yachats, and Newport.  They spent many school breaks and summers fixing up and filling the houses with adventure, and they worked hard at it.  Jason’s house in Yachats was his first love, and with the help and support of his family he was able to get it restored.  

 

Early on as a teenager Jason developed a niche in bonsai and art, but his love for fossils and field trips spawned him to get an education in geology.  Jason met his future wife, Teresa Butler (nee Morthole), on the job while working for PaleoResource Consultants in 2001.  It was obvious to Teresa that he liked her because he spilled his life story and secrets within the first few days.  Jason was famous for one-liners, movie quotes, storytelling, and a unique crude sense of humor.  Teresa learned that vacationing in Yachats was not necessarily just wine and roses, but that vacation also came with a paint brush, raccoons, and bats in the eaves.  Nevertheless they fell for each other quickly, and Jason proposed to Teresa in only seven months.  They married in June 2003.

 

Jason graduated from California State University Sacramento with a Bachelor’s degree in geology in 2003, and he went on to complete a semester towards getting a teaching credential.  However, life continued to pick a new path and he accepted a position as a staff geologist for Wallace-Kuhl & Associates in Sacramento.  Teresa also completed her Bachelor’s degree in geology also at California State University Sacramento in 2005. 

 

Jason’s health took another turn when he developed trigeminal neuralgia, and he went out on disability in the spring of 2006 because the pain was too great.  Despite Jason developing trigeminal neuralgia, Teresa became pregnant with their one and only child.  Jason had brain surgery in the summer of 2006 to treat the trigeminal neuralgia, and while in recovery at the hospital his health took a very serious new down-turn and he was placed on life support.  The specialists were puzzled, but they were able to figure out and treat what was later diagnosed as Miller-Fischer Syndrome a unique sub set of Guillain Barre Syndrome.  After spending over 100 days in the hospital (most of it in ICU), Jason came home to life in a wheelchair.  He had a new normal to adjust to with new complications to deal with.  Shortly after coming home, Jason was hospitalized with meningitis.  Teresa gave birth to their daughter, Tea, at another hospital.  Jason didn’t meet Tea for three days. 

 

From the moment Tea was born, Jason had a new will in life.  Jason put his daughter and wife first.  He went above and beyond as a father and a husband.  He could hold his baby girl and feed her with a bottle while talking on the phone and wheeling himself around the house.  When it came to his daughter, his wheelchair was not an obstacle.  He might have been disabled, but his heart and soul set off and he was determined to raise his little girl to the young woman she is today.  From the midnight songs, elaborate made up bedtime stories, diaper changes, hugs and kisses, to playing games, and going for long drives.  He taught her many things like shooting an airsoft gun, and he even taught her how to drive a car.  They went on 4-wheel-drives and fishing adventures to the lake, or they loaded up the dog and parrot for a Starbucks or Dutch Bros drink run.  Jason had a love for bonsai trees, and he was pleased to see Tea showed an interest to learn the unique art of bonsai.  His disability did not define who he was, as he was the same man Teresa fell in love with and married.  He had carved out a remarkable life for his family.  He was the best husband and father.  He was grounded, and he spoke up about issues he felt were important to him.  His laughter, one-liner jokes, movie quotes, twisted sense of humor, and love for his family and friends rang on. 

 

Jason was not just close with Teresa and Tea, he was also very close with his mom and dad, his brother, and his sister-in-law Deniz Cline.  Jason and Brent were harmless trouble, but they had fun.  The brothers had their own adventures, and their bond could not be broken.  They explored caves, traveled to Alaska, and snuck into movies.  They probably did other things that we don’t know about.  When cell phones became a thing to have, Jason and Brent talked all hours of the day and night.  Brent moved to Newport, but even the distance couldn’t keep them from talking every day.  Brent looked after Jason’s house in Yachats, and when Deniz joined the family she moved to Oregon.  She settled in the guest house in Yachats and became what Jason fondly joked as, “a squatter.”  All of us formed a single-family unit with unbreakable bonds. 

 

The trigeminal neuralgia returned viciously and inhumanly in 2018, and from that point he fought long and hard.  He had multiple hospital stays with multiple treatments, and he had specialty care from a team of doctors.  Jason was trapped in an unrelenting and ever-worsening painful disease.  The time between pain-free remissions shortened.  He stayed strong as long as he could.  There would never be a good time to say goodbye, but as a family we had to let Jason go.  Jason said goodbye to us the evening of January 14, 2023.

 

We miss him.  But we feel his strong personality is still here looking over us, and he is no longer in pain.  He is riding a motorcycle, eating goldfish crackers with his grandmother, and hunting for fossils.  He leaves behind a family, and life-long friends, and we will one day see him again. 

"Only the rocks live forever" ~ Lame Beaver from Centennial by James A. Michener (Jason's favorite author)