Gone With the Butterflies

7:38 am

I woke up this morning to find that my little four-year-old sister, Sabrina, had vanished. I woke my mom, and together we searched the entire house for her. I could imagine exactly what she was doing: crying in a closet somewhere about our dad.

He was an alcoholic and had left us when mom filed for a divorce last year. Dad had not always been
nice or supportive of us, so  Sabrina did not have very many positive memories about him. She was too little to understand why her daddy would come home angry every night and smash bottles on the kitchen table, narrowly missing mom and me. She didn't understand why he would never spend time with her like her friends' fathers did. Because she couldn't grasp the concept that our dad was an alcoholic, she cried when he got angry and would sometimes go up to him and try to calm him down. "It's okay, Daddy. You'll be alright," she'd said once, tugging on his coat. I had run to rescue her before he could harm her and instead distracted her by going outside to play. She could spend hours looking at the frogs in the pond behind our house or watching dragonflies dance.

Even though she had all negative memories of dad, she still worried when he didn't come back home until late at night or disappeared completely for days at a time. Today was father's day; the first after the divorce, so it was guaranteed that Sabrina would be upset.

My thoughts were interrupted by mom shouting, "Lia, come here. Don't worry, I found her." I ran to my mom who was waiting for me at the door and together we raced outside. There she was. Sabrina was standing in the middle of the yard in her pajamas. Hundreds of Monarch Butterflies covered her in a blanket of orange and black. She stood there silently, unmoving. She hardly seemed to breathe. I wanted to call out to her, tell her that it was time to go inside, but I didn't. I couldn't. I was mesmerized by how gentle she was and how calm she seemed. My mother breathed into my ear, answering my unspoken question "You taught her this," I thought for a moment and then realized that she was right. I had brought Sabrina into nature when there was conflict with our dad, so it made sense that she had found the butterflies this morning on her own.

My mom and I smiled at each other as we watched her slowly lift her arms out from the sides of her body, like she was spreading her wings. I could feel the moment of peace drawing to a close. Suddenly, all at once, the butterflies spread their wings and lifted off into the sky. Sabrina stared after them and watched the last of the butterflies disappear. Then she turned to face us and smiled, and in that moment, I knew: she had come to terms with the situation, with her father, and with herself, and her worries, sadness, and fears had gone with the butterflies.