Damn Butterfly

On gave myself a pass on Mother's Day this year. After 6 months of loss of a pregnancy and the ending of adoption, my mama's heart needed some love. I savored sweet moments with Evan and Liv finding funky spots around town including East End Market. We munched on tasty treats and while exploring their gardens we found a monarch caterpillar. We decided to take it and the leafy branch where it was perched home to watch it go through a metamorphosis. Part of the reason was Liv is four and soaking up knowledge like a sponge, and the other part is my ongoing relationship with butterflies.

After reading Sue Monk Kidd's When the Hear Waits, the theme of wrestling in the cocoon and the hope of emerging a beautiful butterfly keeps finding me. But this damn butterfly won't emerge. Days after bringing it home it spun a beautiful cocoon, but there it has remained for weeks. Not surprisingly, I have allowed this to play out an extension of my own wrestling and becoming. The cocoon is black and it looks like nothing is happening. Is it dead and rotting or do I just wait longer? What choice do I have? My four-year-old is much more ok with this than I am. What started as a learning opportunity for her has no doubt become one for me. This is where I am in the becoming. It's dark and I'm wrestling and I don't know if I'll ever get on the other side of this. I'm in the middle part of my story, which is difficult for a storyteller - there is no ending, just beginning and middles.