Kiss the Caterpillar Good-bye
For many years butterflies have been my most deeply meaningful symbol of transformation. Our growth toward fullness of life always involves giving up who we are to become all we have the potential to be. So caterpillars willingly hang from a twig, weave their cocoons, and allow the transformation of their bodies into the exquisite butterflies they become.
Because she knew how much I love butterflies, our high school church secretary at First Presbyterian Church, Livingston, AL, collected butterflies all year and created this beautiful collage of those butterflies, which she gave me after the Christmas Eve service my last Christmas there, 2003. It has been a treasure ever since.
After Katrina, not only were all the live butterflies gone, but all the flowers from which they could feed and transport pollen were gone. Our yards were barren. Somehow I knew they would return. But Kelley’s butterflies were gone, too, and that broke my heart.
Then one day about a month after the storm, dear friends were clearing away the pile of wet sheetrock in the heart room of my house, the room where my collection of butterflies adorned the wall. Suddenly I saw color, one butterfly, then more. There was Kelley’s butterfly collage. Gently, gently, we pulled it from under the pile of sheetrock and other debris. The butterflies were still there. The only change was that a curtain rod holder was stuck to it.
Trusting Walter Anderson’s wisdom that a disaster’s damage to his beautiful paintings was part of their life’s journey, I decided to leave the curtain rod holder on the butterfly collage. Alas! When I started to hang it, the curtain rod holder fell off, pulling some butterflies with it. The scar on the collage looks a lot like a bird in flight, or maybe even a butterfly.
But the butterflies that survived in full color brought, and still bring, me hope. Beautiful though damaged, they are an image of resilience I could not have expected when they lay soaked in Gulf water for a month. For that reason, they adorn the back cover of my book. A perfect image of life beyond disaster. Disaster of any kind.
Butterflies are always a symbol of hope, transformation, resurrection, for me.
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