Butterfly Moments
Butterfly Moments
Butterflies remind me of Leo. They are magical, mysterious. They are beautiful. They have wings. They come and they go so quickly. They are small and fragile. They are everything our Leo is to us, then and now.
It is amazing to me when you take the time to stop and look around, you will see things you had never seen before. We see so many things that we had never noticed before. Maybe we’re more comfortable being still. Maybe we’re looking, searching, wanting a connection. Maybe we’re just more present.
Are there really more butterflies around us, or are we just more aware? Alive. Awake. our lens is no longer blurred.
There are a few moments I see so vividly from the summer after Leo left us, where a butterfly slowed time, shifted my thoughts and soothed my broken heart.
I spend a lot of time alone when I’m working my summer job outside on the golf course. Sometimes that alone time is craved, appreciated, and other times it is messy and forces me to sit with my thoughts. There were countless times this particular season in 2019 that I would be driving or sitting on the course and my thoughts would wander to my boy. My eyes welling with tears. In those moments, every single time a butterfly would appear. It would stay for a moment. It would flutter around me. It would stop me in my tracks. It felt like it had a message it so badly wanted to share, but of course left me to wonder. These beautiful butterfly moments coming and going and stopping and flying and fluttering gifted me moments of hope.
It was Eric’s birthday and we were vacationing in Colorado. We took a day hike in Rocky Mountain National Park. We climbed to the top awed with the view. We sat atop overlooking the world below us and the wonder of this beauty all around us. We shared a sandwich and didn’t talk much. We didn’t need to. Instead we sat, quietly, soaking in the wonder. But there was still a void. Something was missing. We imagined this trip to be with our son. We missed him. We wanted him there with us. There were some unspoken tears. Drips, drops, falling. In that same moment, a butterfly came to us, fluttered around Eric’s head and sat on my shoulder. It made me smile. It made me cry. It was a reminder. It was a sign. Maybe it was even from Leo. We like to think he was communicating with us. It shifted our sadness to pride. Proud to call him ours and experience every moment with him. It just looks a little different than most.
More recently I returned back to school teaching in the same district and with the same schedule. The last time I was in this schedule was 5 months ago. I left unexpectedly when our son was born. The transition back to work has been anything but easy. It has been a struggle for me. Everyone else’s world just kept on. Mine stopped and became very foggy and dark. The world continued to spin and move.
People’s schedules continued… doctor appointments and date nights and work meetings and oil changes and basketball games and on and on and on. But my schedule seemed to be still. Unclear. Yet at some point you have to take a single step back into the world that appears so different than what it used to be. Showing up as a different version of yourself in a world that may be the same old version of itself, yet you’re no longer than same version.
I am not the same. But I am expected to return to work and do the same thing. It is a struggle for me. Moments of sadness come and go but I push them so far down so I can go on with the responsibilities I have at work. One particular day back to school in the fall, my day started with a particularly challenging group of kids. This made me want to run, go, far away. It made me question, even more than usual, what I was doing here. I travel between buildings, so when I arrived at the high school to continue my work day, I sat for a few minutes in my car contemplating going in for the remainder of the day. I decided to get out of the car and take a step towards finishing my day. As I got out of the car, there was a butterfly sitting on tehe trunk of my car. As I walked toward the doors of school, it followed me. I hesitated to open the dorr and walk in, and as I did it sat by the door for another moment, fluttering around me. Then as quickly as it came, flew away, vanishing in the blue sky.
I believe with certainty it was a sign. I know that was a piece of his soul saying ‘hello’. I don’t know what it meant. I do know that he knew I needed him. I needed hope. I needed love. I needed to know he was ok and that I was also going to be ok. And that is exactly what happened. In that moment, everything was ok.
One more deep breath. One more moment in the sunshine. Then one step at a time, forward, to finishing the day. While it may not have been my strongest performance as a teacher that day. I do believe that those days are what have given me confidence in who I now am. No longer who I was before Leo. The new version of me. The versio n I didn’t want. Because of those butterfly moments.
Butterflies. They used to be so simple.
Now those wings and flutters connect me to mine.