Monarch Butterfly

When I was ten, I spent a good half hour chasing a monarch butterfly at a rest stop on the way to visit my family friends in Montreal. I loved how orange and black it was and how quickly its little wings were flapping around me. 

While my parents were preoccupied with making us food, I couldn’t stop running after this butterfly, hoping it would land somewhere close enough to the ground that I could catch it in my hands. The butterfly always flew just a couple inches out of my reach. Finally, after almost giving up, getting sweaty and then basically forgetting about this butterfly, it softly landed at the end of an old wooden bat someone had left in the grass. I crept up behind it so slowly, now that it was finally within arm’s reach. I slammed my hands down on the bat and the butterfly and alarmed myself with how forceful I was against this paper thin, defenseless bug. One of its wings was crushed. I didn’t know what to do with its almost lifeless form except hold it helplessly in my hand and cry. I left it on the end of the bat and went to my mom to complain about how much of an asshole I was. She asked what I thought would have happened if I caught the butterfly. I told her I didn’t know. I had no idea. I didn’t want to keep it, I just wanted to hold it in my hands for a few seconds and be able to observe it up close.

My mom told me to leave it alone and that maybe it would make a miraculous recovery despite my attempts to murder it. After an hour of pacing back and forth next to the old baseball bat, I watched the beautiful butterfly recover fully and fly away. There is a metaphor here.