Life Cycles

Lessons & Reflections from the National Butterfly Center

Mourning Cloak frank modelI’ve started three or four columns in the last several months. Each begins with a good idea, and quickly unravels. Something sweet and simple sours. That strong theme, one I am sure will dance across the page with happy feet, takes a left turn and goes south, fast.  And by south I mean Antarctica—not south Texas—where gem-colored butterflies and birds fill the skies with Fruit Loop hues. 

This is my season of sadness.

It started a month or so before the Texas Butterfly Festival, when members-turned-friends began to share their stories of illness, suffering and loss: a stricken wife, a broken heart, a loved one destroyed by dementia….  For me, there was a kind man who made music, my best friend’s mother, an associate moved to hospice, and then, my father.

I know many of you have walked this barren path before, and can imagine where I stand. Mourning is a terrible thing I keep trying to make peace with, but the merciless creep will have none of it. I’ve tried to find some strange beauty or solace in it, but grief won’t give that, either. 

Should I lean in? Give myself over to it, again?  It seems this a life cycle humans are designed to endure, over and over!

I know this cruel slide will end and winter will break, but, now, I must brace for the cold. The wind-chilled Queens have fallen from the trees, dotting the landscape like orange and black exclamation points. In my head, they add emphasis to Ecclesiastes, reiterating ad nauseam, “to everything there is a season….” 

Spent, people and plants, wither; but not without re-seeding. 

The lone chrysalis that was found and brought inside for safeguarding yielded a Monarch, yesterday, and my thoughts immediately turned to milkweed, eggs and voracious larvae that will live out their lifecycle in the months to come. New shoots and buds will begin to appear soon, because Nature shows us spring is not far away.  Still, She teaches we must wait. Not just for flowers, but also for healing, for wholeness and the fullness of purpose that is uniquely ours in passing.

Thank you, to all who have wrapped me in warmth and wiped my tears this winter; your gentleness has been a tremendous gift that is tilling and transforming my sorrow.

 
 

We are grateful for the support of:

City-of-Mission-Color-Logo bentsen-palm

Inside the National Butterfly Center

Hours of Operation

Open 7 Days a Week 
8:00 - 5:00
364 Days / Year

Closed Easter Sunday

Come See Us

National Butterfly Center
3333 Butterfly Park Drive
Mission, TX 78572
956-583-5400
GPS Coordinates:
26.180243 -98.364973

You are here: Home Media NBC Blog Life Cycles