Butterfly Sips

I’ve taken a bit of a hiatus from writing as my beautiful mother passed away on April 30th. Now, I am back working at the end of the Gunflint Trail, grateful to be in the healing presence of the wilderness.

The loss of mom has been and continues to be a difficult one. Grief shows up at unexpected times and places, refusing to be ignored and insisting upon my full attention. In years past, I may have closed the door when Grief knocked, but now I open it wide, and invite my well-known guest in. We sit in silence together.

Chacha and I took a walk to a public landing to enter the Boundary Waters at a nearby lake. I sat on a rock at the edge of the lake while noticing a large group of Eastern Tiger Swallowtail butterflies fluttering about. Perhaps we made too much noise or disturbed them in some way, but suddenly, they all flew away but one. This one butterfly flew in circles around Chacha and me. Gracefully dipping up and down, around and around, as if to show us how skillfully it could fly, demanding our attention as it dipped and fluttered up and around us.

The butterfly then dropped down onto the surface of the lake and got a tiny butterfly drink of water. My heavy, grief-fogged eyes came in to focus on this beautiful butterfly and I choked out, “Mom, is that you?”

The tears came hot and fast as the ragged sobs choked out. The memory of holding my mother’s head up in my hand and coaxing drops of water into her mouth with the other, being ever so careful that she didn’t choke. Butterfly sips of water. And here, this beautiful butterfly, able to drink perfectly fine on its own, thank you very much, continued to fly around me and Chacha, until it communicated what it had intended to and flew off to other areas to explore.

Was that my mother? Who knows, I’m not an expert on these things. But I do know the healing power of being in nature and how oblivious I can be to my surroundings at times. As I walk with my companions, Grief and Chacha, I tend to pay a bit more attention to my brothers and sisters in this natural world, and see them looking back at me. They seem to be as curious about me as I am about them.