How Nature Reflects Our Lives

Those of you who know my family know we love BUTTERFLIES! Years ago, when I saw that L'Bri had butterflies as their logo for their consultants, I was very pleased. It was one of my many signs that I should join Linda and Brian in their company. The butterfly reminds my family and I of our Mom. She loved butterflies - along with her sister - my Aunt Judy! Because they loved them, we loved them. It's a symbol of love, strength and beauty. When I see a butterfly, I think of my parents, my Aunt, my siblings, my daughter, and of course, for many, many years now, my L'Bri family.

One day, I was at a friend’s house and she told my daughter Sylvia and I about all the milkweed in her yard that was full of monarch caterpillars. I was amazed and really excited. Her son brought us two plump caterpillars with a big piece of milkweed for us to take home. Sylvia and I stopped at a hobby shop and picked up a butterfly cage that was a white, sheer netting material. We went home and placed the cage by the window on a table in my living room.

We waited anxiously, looked inside often and couldn't wait to see what would happen.

After a few days, we noticed that the zipper on the top of the cage was open a tiny bit and one of the caterpillars was gone. We wondered and worried for the little fella. The other caterpillar was doing nothing but eating away at its milkweed. I decided to move the netted cage to the kitchen counter away from the window just in case it may have been too hot. In fact, I must have been right because hours later we looked and there was a perfect, green, beautiful chrysalis hanging from the top of the cage.

Every day we watched it as it hung silently alone in its home.

A few days later, on a Saturday afternoon, we were all running around the house cleaning with music blaring when I heard my husband Tom call us to the living room. We ran in a furry to see what he was doing. To our amazement, all alone hanging from my living room table by the window was a perfect, green, beautiful chrysalis hanging from the lip of our table. Sure enough there was our other caterpillar; we were so thrilled and relieved!

I thought about this later that day and realized this fella was so determined it found a way to escape the hotness of the window through a tiny hole to get into a cool area where it could start its wondrous change on the lip of our table.

My daughter brought home a book tonight for us to read together about butterflies. It reminded me that I wanted to write about this story.

This is what the book said happens to this incredible insect before it turns into the Chrysalis...

the caterpillar eats constantly, it grows and its skin gets too tight (sounds familiar). Three to four times it splits open where a new skin is always underneath...the caterpillar is plump, big and round and it stops eating. It then spins a silken anchor to hang from and rest -usually on a branch or a fence... (in our case our table)


Inside the Chrysalis, a new head grows - two big eyes, a long curled tongue, two feelers on its head, six long legs grow out of the chest, three pairs of legs, four tiny buds grow into four wings each covered with scales. It stays curled up while changing colors. The butterfly keeps stretching until it bursts the chrysalis wide open.

What a great memory and such a perfect example of how determination can happen when we just remember we have choices...one caterpillar waited and hoped to be moved...the other took it upon itself to do something about its situation and get to where it needed to be to survive! Seeing that butterfly hanging on the table as it started to open was such a great feeling.

Seeing my daughter set them free was like a great ending to a beautiful meaningful journey we were able to experience with these two unaware creators.

Nature is such a reflection of how we can live our lives.