Becoming Butterflies

Madi, like most kids, loves Eric Carle books. Her favorite is “The Very Quiet Cricket.” A close second is “The Very Hungry Caterpillar.” Many of you are familiar with the story of this caterpillar. He is born, eats a ton of food, forms a cocoon, and then becomes a beautiful butterfly. When Madi and I read the part where he eats so much he gets a tummy ache, sometimes we would joke that he must have eaten some of her decadron. Madi could identify with that very hungry caterpillar. Madi’s teachers gave her an Eric Carle butterfly nightlight that comforted her through some sleepless nights.

The butterfly is such an amazing creature. To start out as a long, thin, wormlike creature and then experience a metamorphosis to gain colorful wings and the ability to fly is such a foreign experience to us as humans. What a change in perspective from inching along the ground to soaring around the treetops!

The butterfly is a common symbol used by foundations that have helped us through our journey. Trey is enrolled in Camp Cocoon for this summer. Here is what they have to say about their camp:

Each day of our lives reminds us that change is continuous and unavoidable. Camp Cocoon helps give young people the tools emotionally and spiritually to deal with devastating changes and helps participants to develop from: a feeling of loss to a celebration of life, from confusion to understanding, from tears of trauma to tears of joy from happy memories, and from cocoons to butterflies!

Many of you will remember the program that Madi and I did with Beads of Courage. Madi received a glass bead corresponding to whatever difficult thing she had to do, e.g. needle sticks, surgery, chemo, radiation, to place on a necklace. When Madi’s journey was done, she had amassed enough beads to fill three very long necklaces. It is an awesome sight to behold what she had to endure represented by these beads. When she passed, I asked my friends where the “died” bead was. I felt there should be a bead corresponding to death and proposed that it should be a diamond for the mom. (I realized how irreverent this was, but sometimes irreverence helps me assimilate heavenly things with earthly things.) Interestingly enough there is a “died” bead, Beads of Courage more sensitively calls it the grief bead, and it is a beautiful, glass, hand-painted butterfly. It is perfect.

The Brain Tumor Foundation for Kids also uses the butterfly as a symbol. Their Butterfly Fund is a program that provides financial assistance to needy families of children and young adults with brain and spinal cord tumors. Jay really liked this organization based in Atlanta, and started volunteering with them. We decided to start an annual Tumor Trooper Run/Walk in Columbus to represent the many families struggling with brain tumors there, including Madi and Tori, and to raise money for the Butterfly Fund. The run was very successful, meaning I took home a second place medal for my age group… okay, the bigger success was that we raised a ton of money. We are so thankful to our friends and family who donated time, money, sweat, and those Chick-Fil-A chicken biscuits!



Trey with Ms. Leigh's beautiful daughters



The famous Miss Tori

Amy, my good friend, took first for the girls; Kirstin, who flew in from Texas to support me, took first place in the Masters division; and I took second place in my age group. Check out the hardware!

Butterflies now hold a special place in my heart. I love the myriad of meaning that can be drawn from using the butterfly has a symbol. I think the most meaningful analogy of the butterfly’s metamorphosis would be life of the Savior. He lived on earth, died and was placed in a tomb, then emerged as a resurrected, glorified being. I know that this is what our Heavenly Father wants for us. He wants us to take all of our life’s experiences, good and bad, that we gain as we inch along the earth, use them to build a chrysalis so that, through the atonement, we too can emerge as beautiful, resurrected, perfected, glorified beings and soar among the heavens.