Ever experience something that you don’t talk about much because you know people will look at you funny and say, “Yeah, right.”
For me, it was the night my mom visited — maybe 7 or 8 years ago. If you’ve been reading this blog for long, you’ll know that’s impossible because my mom died in 1992.
However, when she was alive, she always said that after she died she was coming back as a “Pooty Butterfly.” My brother, Bernie, always shot back with, “Yeah, you’ll be the biggest damn butterfly around.” And my mother would laugh and smack him on the head. (This is called Italian affection.)
Well, the biggest damn butterfly actually did visit me one night and it wouldn’t leave. I was living in Glendale, in my cute latte colored cottage home with chocolate trim. One evening as I opened the screen door to my bedroom and stepped out to get something, in flapped the biggest monarch butterfly I’d ever seen. I was stunned.
I just thought it was so weird to see a butterfly that huge and that late in the evening. I yelled, “Oh my God, you guys, come here. Look, my mom’s here!” My kids and my then-husband came in and we all took turns looking at the giant butterfly that landed on the wall and wouldn’t leave. I was all excited and said, “It’s my mom…oh my God, she’s here!”
My then-husband decided it wasn’t my mom and, even if it was, he didn’t like her on the wall of our bedroom. So he took a newspaper and brushed her off and out the door to the back porch. I was not happy because I wanted to keep her on the wall as long as she wanted to stay.
I went to bed that night marveling at the coincidence of it all. When I got up in the morning, I went to the back porch just outside my bedroom to take care of something. I was amazed to see Mom/the butterfly was sitting on the dining table there, as if she was waiting for me (or breakfast).
I was stunned and wanted to go look at her closer. I excitedly yelled to my then-husband that the butterfly was still here. He came out with the newspaper and scooped her off the table. (There’s a reason we got divorced.) She fluttered away flapping mightily to gain altitude in the back yard. But she was rather large and our brown lab leaped up and swallowed her in one big bite.
I was so terribly sad that she was gone, but it all made sense to me. She was always feeding people, so it was only logical that she would supply a snack for someone before she left.
When I got to work later that morning, I looked up large monarch butterfly and the first thing that came up was butterfly giganticus and a photo that looked just like my mom butterfly. Isn’t that kind of weird and cool and a little woo-woo all at the same time? Please write and tell me your weird stories, so I don’t feel alone.
I really kinda think it was her.