The butterfly

Acilia brought a butterfly home from school, little did I know what an emormous experience this would be. Read on...

The day we brought the caterpillars home, was like any other day. I thought to myself, what a fun little project. Acilia enjoyed watching the caterpillar grow....and grow....and grow! And hang upside down to reach the nutrient in the bottom. The chrysalis formed and we waited. 7 days passed. 8 days passed. 9 days passed. Since the paperwork said that it takes 7-10 days I expected that it was a possibility that it would take the full 10 days. But I was still wondering when the heck he would emerge. Day 10, a new butterfly had worked his way out to the world! The poor thing was on the bottom of the container upside down :( I worked gently to flip him on to his legs. To be honest, I thought he didn't make it and I had discovered an unfortunate circumstance. NOT the case. Butterfly was alive, and fine. Aside from his horribly mangled wings. Emerging and then landing on his back with all the weight on his delicate wings proved to be a challenge for this little guy. HOWEVER, this butterfly has a spirit and a will to live. As "coincidence" (or perfectly configured by the good Lord himself to show us in true form how he really is with us in every way) would have it. The day the butterfly emerged was the same day my grandfather passed away. I saw the symbolism in it, and explained to Acilia how neat I thought it was that the butterfly freed himself from his crysalis the same day Grandpa "Cuckoo" (they have a cuckoo clock) freed himself from cancer. It was a beautiful experience. Even more beautiful; today was the funeral. We thought it would be neat to release the butterfly by Grandpa's grave. Acilia loved this idea, so she carefully carried the little fighter in it's container. We brought it in to the church for the service. Would you believe that the bulletin for Grandpa's funeral had a beautiful butterfly on it??? I felt compelled after this discovery to share all of this with the Pastor that would be performing the service. I went up and spoke with him about what a neat little story this school project has become. He thought it was neat too, and worked it in to his sermon! The service ended and we moved on to the grave site. Acilia picked a flower to release her butterfly onto, and this butterfly was at home right away surrounded by beauty!

This morning, Acilia began to cry, she missed her butterfly :( I can't help but think it's misplaced sorrow for the loss we have on a much bigger scale, but to make her feel better, we went outside and I showed her a bush we have in our yard that should attract butterflies all summer because it's called a "Butterfly bush" while we were outside, wouldn't ya know we were graced with the first butterfly of the season in our yard??