Shutter Sisters

to honour and protect

By

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They only live for ten hours, you know, or three days, or barely a week, or something like that, said Justin to me gently, puzzled as to why I stood there with the ailing butterfly in my hand. And I thought well then that’s a lifetime, and a whole new way to think about ten hours or three days or barely a week.

You are good and beautiful and perfect, I whispered to the butterfly as he wriggled faintly, beaten by a broken wing. He seemed to be listening. You go on to be an elephant or a brook trout or a tiny baby boy, and have fantastic adventures of a whole new kind. You take your glorious yellow with you, thread it into your next soul so we all can admire it forever.

This morning I went back to the hosta and he’d been blown by the wind into its stem forest. I righted him, delicate as he was, already having lost the moisture and suppleness of life, and spoke to him again but this time he was elsewhere, and all that seemed left was just his shell.

But I know better.

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Today, share with us a vision of something that’s moved you deeply – no matter how small. 

Comments

  7. I wanted to mail my mom a wish…Since we are more than 4,000 miles apart-I wanted her to know that I’m with her, that I think about her, and so-I picked a handful of wishes to send…

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/edarcy/2563494046/

    But days later they still cling, float, and wait on the living room floor, in my journal, in the wind breezing through the open windows…

  13. In our local park we have something called the Cancer Survivors Plaza. On the day of my friend’s recent double mastectomy, I took my son there to pray, send her love and healing thoughts and just reflect on how this disease has touched our lives in so many ways. Especially for my friend as well as our friends 1 y.o. who is fighting (and winning) a battle with Neuroblastoma.

    These are signs that guide your walk through the plaza as well as other shots:
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/cuzamora/2413934129/
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/cuzamora/2414760304/
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/cuzamora/2413935759/
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/cuzamora/2413927685/
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/cuzamora/2414763812/

    Happily, she has her last radiation treatment today! My heart is overjoyed today.

  15. Wow! This so hit me! Maybe because I’m feeling a bit like that beaten butterfly right now…………

  21. No photo I could ever dig up could rival yours and the insights and tenderness that comes with it. This is such a beautiful post Kate and even more meaningful knowing who you are and what your lifetime has held. Thank you for giving us yet another glimpse of what really matters.

  27. My youngest, in her barrettes, the ones I hated to wear, dancing in our kitchen with the light hitting her face, like my mother brushing her across the years, finally having that girlchild she truly desired. And seeing Rosalyn sense that, stop and greet the light on her face.

  28. Beautiful post. We had a nest in the rose bushes outside. Three perfect eggs yielded three precious baby birds. We’d peek in on them each day to watch their feathers form and to catch their mouths wide open as they patiently waited for their mama to return. Watching a new life take shape is such a gift. When they disappeared one day, I felt deeply saddened by the loss. It was not yet their time to fly, but I carry them with me.

  29. This is just perfect. This should be a memoir of hope for grieving parents, or people who have lost. Your words about the ‘glorious yellow’ of the butterlfies just takes me away…what a beautiful, simple metaphor for everything important, especially your baby boy.