“The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.”
Rabindranath Tagore
Kaio’s mama shouted for us to enjoy the delicate beauty of the little butterfly before it flew away. My five-year-old grandson, Kaio, and I ran over to witness the tiny beauty at our feet. None of us breathed as we watched her flap her wings and begin to take off and then—and then she fluttered, swayed, and looped-delooped lopsided back-down to earth. Oh! We gasped in unison. Something was terribly wrong. Kaio looked at her closer. “Oh no, Nana! I see the problem. She’s broken. There’s a hole in her wings. She’s hurt. I don’t think she can fly!” Instantly our joy in her jewel-like splendor dissolved into sorrow. Then action. “Nana, butterflies like nectar!” I soaked a bit of bread with honey. But the stickiness looked like it was going to glue her to a fast—albeit, sweet—denouement. “I know!” Kaio brightened. “Flowers!!!” He and I ran to gather as many flowers as we could find and he brought them to her. She would rally, show a spirited attempt to climb upon them and then again try to fly away only to find herself leveled, staggering to the earth far below her vertical goals of sky and tree tops and clouds.
Kaio and I ran along beside her. We placed her in a generous earthen pot and filled it with more flowers, hoping she would find solace in a safe garden for her final resting place. But no. She again would try again and again to fly and fall and lift and topple over and over again. Kaio named her “Flower” and I marveled at her strong will to live even though everything about her was ragged and growing ever more weary. Her strength was ebbing. “Nana, I think she’s going to die…” And we talked about how fierce she was in her fight for life. We worried that she might be grabbed up by a bird, or the dog might inadvertently step on her. So once again we scooped her up and placed her in a quiet grove of bushes and brought her a tiny cup of passion fruit juice surrounded by more flowers and there she rested. Exhausted. Probably from us carrying her about too much. In time, Kaio was off playing, his work with “Flower” was over. Somehow I knew that he knew there was not much more he could do for her and moved on.
But I couldn’t leave her side. I watched as she tried to drink the sweet liquid while her wings opened and closed slower and slower. In my heart I could almost feel the aching strains of Puccini’s exquisite opera, Madama Butterfly. In moments, breaths, her wings finally closed together as if in prayer transforming her into what looked like a minuscule Japanese origami—at last falling over on her side nestling against the flowers.
I guess the greatest lesson that beautiful little Nature Teacher taught me was that life is experienced in moments…some longer, some briefer, but all moments. We can’t hold on to them. We each have our own paths, our own time limits. And we must live with all our might until our time is up. Until then, we mustn’t give up. That little butterfly was determined to fly until she simply couldn’t any more. I loved that about her. All we can do is offer each other loving support—maybe even a flower or two—moment-to-moment. And learn from the wisdom of a child. At best, when someone beloved close to us dies—even if it’s a gentle butterfly—we must still live and then move on and play enjoying the remaining sunshine of the day…
