Butterflies

       A long time ago, when I was a little girl, about the age of 4, I had a cousin. She was tall  and graceful in her every move. She always smiled every day, no matter what, and helped anyone who needed it. Her kind heart leads to others becoming kind to others as a well as if it was contagious. She used her manners when appropriate, but never in a stiff manner, and was casual in every manner. 

       Her words, whenever anything troubled someone as soon as she figured out what the problem was, would show an enlightened version of the world that many deemed so cold and empty, and bask it in a golden ray of sunlight. She was wise beyond her years in many ways with an old world type of enlightenment passed down by angels that man had disregarded, and she had found among the specks of dust left the past. It was like she had read through every book and every scripture and reached a state of perfect calm that could only be found in the perfect dream or in complete silence. 

     She seemed to have the power to make others laugh anytime on any day, even when they were really sad or depressed. She would pinpoint the issue, and use a word to counter every negative emotion swirling in a person until they were ghosts of the past. To her, everything had a meaning, every color, every flower, every cloud that dotted the perfect ever blue sky that seemed to follow her everywhere. Like she was a part of the sun that had fallen to the earth to shed it's light closer to the ground. Like a fallen angel sent to make life not so cold and spread the warmth down to humankind and the simple aspect of kindness and selflessness faded into the distant past. 

   Something she always said to me was. 

       "I'm a butterfly because butterflies don't hate. They aren't cruel or selfish. they make others feel better, no matter what. They are the kind people that always smile even though they could be sad, yet they still keep on smiling. Not for themselves but for others. They are innocent and tender. Please be my butterfly." 

     My answer would be, "but what about your brother, don't you hate him? And that one guy down the street who plays his music too loud? Don't you hate them?"

   Her light, bubbly laughter would tinkle like small bells at this before she would respond. 

       "I don't hate or harm, even when people are cruel to me for unjust reasons, or else I wouldn't be a butterfly anymore. How would I be able to fly like I do without my butterfly wings?" 

      She never failed to make me smile and giggle.  

      We would always frolic together around the green pastures with our young energy and she would take her soft cream colored cloak and make it look like she could fly away with a gentle breeze. Her grace making it look like she was dancing to an unknown, unspoken silent tune that only she could hear. I always loved how the wind caught that cloak or when she walked, how it fluttered behind her in a soft breeze and waved like an ocean shore.

      I never once saw her cry. 'Till it was time for her to say goodbye... forever.

      One day she grew gravely ill, yet she kept smiling and played with me in the grassy fields. I, being young and unobservant to see what was really happening, didn't notice that she was in pain, because she was still there, smiling for me, in her significantly weakened state. 

      One day my mom got a call. It was from her sister, that her oldest daughter had been in the bedridden and her illness had too strong of a hold. So in other words, she was going to die, and so I would get to see her one last time before the angels took her pure heart away from me. 

       When I saw her, her skin had an unnatural tinge of yellow to it, and you could see the veins under her paper-like skin bulging with effort, to keep her alive, yet her eyes were still full of life and her pure light that came from the goodness of her heart. Dying, yet she still smiled, for me. She didn't want me to see her fading wings as she descended until her wings could no longer carry her. When she noticed I was in her hospital room she smiled even bigger, though sadness filled her eyes at the sight of me. Her trembling and weak hand gently brushed my soft, blonde hair and rosy pink cheek and her last words came to me. Merely a whisper, but they were as clear as they had always been, and would forever be imprinted on my memory.

 " Always be my butterfly, and smile even when you're sad. Even after I'm gone. Smile. I regret causing you such sadness, but smile, for I will forever fly with the angels, and watch you from the light of the sun and stars" And she wiped the tears from my eyes and sang. Her voice was soft, like a lyre, as the soothing melody washed over to me as I slept in the hospital bed with her for the final time. Asleep to the whispered melody I forever hear.  

    The next morning she had died with tears in her eyes. The only tears I had ever seen from her, but she was still smiling even after she died. She had been taken to the angels in heaven where she belonged.  

    The days where we would read Doctor Seuss books and sing and dance in the rain had gone, faded like an old photograph, but I never forgot her warming smile. That tender-hearted smile that was highly contagious and warming like sunshine against the skin. 

The music she made was now just a background noise, a comforting lullaby for me but I never forgot. I promised I wouldn't forget her. Even when I was an elderly woman and my memory was had left me. 

I lived my life like that, a butterfly. I always felt that warm gaze on me from the shadows, that soft smiles like fleece, her smile and her gaze watching from heaven where she watched over me keeping the darkness away from my heart. Even when I elderly and married with my grandchildren, I never hated anyone, cause I was a butterfly, and butterflies don't hate. 

She was a butterfly and I'm one too, I'll keep passing it on for generations. 

"Butterflies don't hate" 

Edited 11/26/2016