| Subject: My Angel Has Buttefly Wings (The Words) |
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m&m
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Date Posted: 18:14:39 04/20/04 Tue
My mother always had a deep love of butterflies.
And she seemed to believe that they could solve any problem. When my sisters and I were little, if any pair of jeans became too worn and that inevitable hole in the knee started to appear, she would happily affix a butterfly applique over the hole, and they’d be good as new.
It became something of a joke that began in those years when holes in your jeans were -the- thing: “Don’t let Mom see it, she’ll put a butterfly on it.” ...And how she tried!
Butterflies crept into all different areas of life. They brightened walls, and made for some of her favorite calendar designs. If she got a nice butterfly greeting card from someone, it would find its way into a frame to be propped somewhere as art.
In all of these endeavors, she seemed to love the Monarch especially, the royalty of all butterflies, and among the most stunning, I‘d say.
One of the most poignant uses of her beloved butterflies came when her hair began to thin when she was being battered by chemotherapy. I knew how much that hurt her---I remember one of the only times I ever saw her cry during the entire course of all that cancer did to her was when she came home from one of her first treatments, having been assaulted by the long list of side-effects and such, and she put a hand up to her hair and said “Maybe it’s not a big thing, and it shouldn‘t mean this much, but I always thought I had such beautiful hair” through her tears.
She went out soon afterwards and bought all the butterfly ‘hair ornaments and clips’ that she could find, and she would fix them in her thinning hair...and she was always beautiful, but they reminded her of it and added a focus for others so that everything wasn’t about what cancer was taking from her, in the end.
If it was broken and needed fixing, if it needed some inspiration or a touch of color, and if it just needed a reminder of the beauty that life can hold...just add a butterfly.
~~~~ * ~~~~ * ~~~~ *
The morning of her funeral, I went out on to the front porch...as life felt as shattered and broken as it ever would...trying to find some answer as to how I was supposed to get through the day, and all of its’ tomorrows. After the fact, I remember that it had dawned a beautiful day, but warm sun and vibrant colors were fairly useless to my numb and unseeing self. I sat down in one of the wicker rocking chairs and started to rock, looking over the porch railing into the distance---when a pair of big, beautiful Monarch butterflies danced into my line of vision. They flitted around me, almost in a teasing manner---coming close, then pulling back, returning again.
So on the morning I never expected to find a smile in anything...I did.
Later, as we were all seated in the midst of the graveside service, I was trying to focus on the words being said, but I was feeling so closed off to everything, so numb...words were ringing pretty empty. As I stared hard at her casket draped in flowers, dancing around the casket, intermittently landing right on it to sit and perch on the flowers, there was a pair of Monarchs. It was such an experience---I wondered if they were actually there as they remained right there throughout the service, moving in and around all of us.
Afterwards though, my dad mentioned it to me. “I was listening, but I couldn’t help but have my attention caught by those butterflies. Did you see them?”
I don’t know if the butterflies were attending her service and gracing the day for her----“look, you were feeling worn and broken, and now, it’s been fixed.” She fought so hard to act like she was okay right up until that last day, but it was obvious she was tired of fighting.
Or maybe it was that she was the spirit of those beautiful butterflies that she loved so much---angels need wings, and hers were those of the butterfly---as she reminded us that she was still with us, all around us, existing in new, beautiful forms far beyond mortal ones.
Last fall and winter, I continued to come across butterflies long after it was there time to be around. It’s uncanny how often I would run into them when I was most in need of an answer, when my mother was most forefront in my thoughts, and when I needed to be reminded that life could still be beautiful again. When I need her assurance or acceptance of something...there are my fluttering symbols of her. When I told her in thought that I wanted to take her with us in some way, to have her experience it all with us when we returned to our little beach escape without her for the first time this past summer, there was a Monarch, perched on the light at the end of the driveway when we left for it, to see us off, and back again when we returned.
I’ve been broken, worn, and full of holes...and even now, Mom continues to patch it all with butterflies.
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