My daughter and I recently found a butterfly slowly flapping next to newly planted tomatoes. The creature was something beyond lovely. It was a good seven inches wide and about as half as long. Stripes of yellow and black, as well as bright blue “eyes,” were painted on its wings. My daughter asked, “When will it fly?” I wondered the same question for about an hour and then realized it wasn’t in the backyard to fly, rather it had landed to die.
My realization gave me pause, like all deaths do, about the short time life provides for living. I thought about the days it must have flown, flower to flower, doing what butterflies do. It didn’t know the end was coming, it just arrived there in manicured lawn suburbia. It choked me up a bit, even though death and I have become quite comfortable in my hospital chaplaincy career. My daughter said, “I’m sad it has to die.” I replied, “Yes, so am I, but I’m glad we are here so it doesn’t have to be alone.”
We checked on the butterfly for the rest of the afternoon, making small comments on how much it had moved or hadn’t moved. By the time the clock had set the sun, death was done. The color of its wings had changed to a muted yellow and the flashy blue of the painted eyes was a flat grey. The next morning the body was gone, mostly likely drug away by a neighborhood cat or the like. A fitting end, I suppose, for a well flown life.
