The End of a Lifecycle
My seven year old loves butterflies so we did what many before us have done. We got one of those butterfly kits, ordered larvae online and watched them grow. She actually chose to do this as part of a science project for school and had a lot of fun with it. We got four butterflies out of the deal which I feel pretty good about since we only started out with six caterpillars. I believe their names WERE: Flip, Flutter, Fly and Stacy. Uh, ya.
Little did I know this would go south fast. Slowly, one by one, they died and my daughter was crushed every single time. I had no idea the level of love that surrounded these bugs and work hard to bury my cynicism.
They have a very short life span! I try to explain that THIS is the life cycle of a butterfly. Death is part of their very short life. I try to comfort her and explained that God only made their bodies to last a week or two. It's nobodies fault. That's just the way it is. They had a good life, I lied as they were manhandled everyday by four children. It was just their time. Now they are in heaven and having way more fun there.
Apparently I'm a very poor counselor as my daughter continues to sob and talk about her love for them and express her devastation on the injustice of life.
I start to feel annoyed because we were essentially talking about butterflies here. I mean I just killed a spider in the other room. Do you want to have a funeral?!
But I muster up as much empathy as possible. I explain that things and people we love will die. Saying goodbye is a part of life regardless of our feelings. Regardless of how much we love and wish thing were different, there is a bigger plan for us all. We just have to love the 'things' and people around us as much as we can, while we can.
She looks at me through the tears and asks, 'Can we order some more butterflies?'
I kiss her sweetly, give her a big hug and reply,
'Not in a million years!'
Like hell I'm going through this again.
Little did I know this would go south fast. Slowly, one by one, they died and my daughter was crushed every single time. I had no idea the level of love that surrounded these bugs and work hard to bury my cynicism.
They have a very short life span! I try to explain that THIS is the life cycle of a butterfly. Death is part of their very short life. I try to comfort her and explained that God only made their bodies to last a week or two. It's nobodies fault. That's just the way it is. They had a good life, I lied as they were manhandled everyday by four children. It was just their time. Now they are in heaven and having way more fun there.
Apparently I'm a very poor counselor as my daughter continues to sob and talk about her love for them and express her devastation on the injustice of life.
I start to feel annoyed because we were essentially talking about butterflies here. I mean I just killed a spider in the other room. Do you want to have a funeral?!
But I muster up as much empathy as possible. I explain that things and people we love will die. Saying goodbye is a part of life regardless of our feelings. Regardless of how much we love and wish thing were different, there is a bigger plan for us all. We just have to love the 'things' and people around us as much as we can, while we can.
She looks at me through the tears and asks, 'Can we order some more butterflies?'
I kiss her sweetly, give her a big hug and reply,
'Not in a million years!'
Like hell I'm going through this again.
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