Identifying The Butterfly

 

The sun is shining through the window of my grandmother’s home on Pine Street.  I am sitting on the floor. Through the door enters a woman head down. She is wearing a blue and burgundy floral skirt with a matching blouse tied at the waist. I recognize that outfit, my mother made it on her sewing machine.  I can’t see her expression because a straw hat is shadowing her face from the light. My father follows behind and closes the door. The room is very quiet. This is one of my first memories of my mother... I was nine years old.



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The butterfly is an amazing creature that through folklore has been tied to anything from bad luck to good luck, from death to life. It symbolizes hope and can carry messages to heaven or even be the spirit of the dead coming back to visit loved ones. My own butterfly tale began that day when my mother walked through the door on Pine Street. It first manifested itself as a Malar Rash or butterfly shaped rash on my mother’s face. Shortly after that she was diagnosed with a terminal illness known as Lupus. Using the life cycle of the Monarch caterpillar as it transform into a butterfly I explore the disease of Lupus as it transforms a human life.