The Butterfly Whisperer

I saw Pop sitting just outside the veranda, slumped over in his wheelchair, his limp left arm tied to the chair’s railing. He looked up and waved with his good hand. “Sara!” he called with delight. My breath caught in my throat, and I choked back the tears. I closed my eyes, feeling the pull of my childhood memories urging me to leave. “Don’t leave; he needs you!” the voice inside my head reminded me. I squared my shoulders, meandering my way along the footpath toward Pop, my legs unsteady beneath me. I sat down next to him, placing our lunch on the picnic table in front of him. I leaned toward him giving him a kiss and hug remembering summer afternoons sitting at the picnic table in our backyard eating burgers with him and watching the butterflies dance around Mother’s zinnias. “La…la…love you!” “Love you, too, Pop.” I squeezed his right hand. A big monarch butterfly gently floated over Pop and landed on his shoulder. Soon a kaleidoscope of them floated around him. I watched in awe, remembering when butterflies swarmed around him in our backyard. For most of my youth, I truly believed Pop possessed some type of magical ability that attracted butterflies. Later, I convinced myself he didn’t possess magical butterfly powers, believing instead that Pop made them feel welcome and safe. Regardless, the butterflies gravitated toward him like iron shavings to a magnet. There was no denying it; he was still the butterfly whisperer. Time passed imperceptibly as we watched the butterflies flutter from flower to flower. Occasionally, one landed on the stem of a flower that had already passed its peak, its petals blackened at the edges and curling. It folded its wings neatly upward and partook of the flower’s nectar, seemingly unaware that summer would quickly become fall; that the leaves would soon tumble; and that the nights would close in, chilly and long. “Look, Pop!” I pretended to capture a butterfly. “I caught one!” “Wh…Wh…Whisper.” His eyes sparkled, vibrant as ever; but when he tried to wink, he couldn’t. “Make wa…wa…wish.” Watching Pop try to wink or talk was more than my heart could handle; so I closed my eyes and whispered my wish: “Erase the stroke; make my father whole again.” But no amount of wishing would ever make my father whole again. Throughout the remainder of summer, Pop and I watched butterflies outside the verandah. But I couldn’t keep summer with us forever, nor could I halt the changing season. The flowers on the verandah withered; the leaves tumbled and rustled about; and the nights eventually closed in, chilly and long. One-by-one the butterflies vacated the flowers on the verandah and began their migration southward. Pop, too, vacated the verandah and began his own migration of sorts. In that moment of loss, my world collapsed, and my heart broke into a thousand pieces. wings flutter so light summer now ends. fall begins butterflies migrate