It was not a dark and stormy night. Rather, it was an overcast afternoon, September 2007. I was heading home after an afternoon at the library when I felt a wet plop on my head. Suspecting the worst, I paused my MP3 player and held out a hand. Sure enough, my palm was soon splattered by a drop of rain. Just my luck, I grumbled to myself. I picked up my walking speed a bit and resumed my music.
I had only traveled a few dozen more feet when something brightly colored caught my eye. Off to my right, in a patch of tall grass at the side of the road, something orange and black in color was nestled in the reeds. I moved in for a closer look and found it was a monarch butterfly. I'd seen these delicate creatures in the area before – large, handsome animals that flew gracefully and elegantly. I could tell that something was up with this one, though, as it did not flee or even move in my presence. Taking advantage of the situation, I gently scooped up the insect and began carrying it home. It moved a little – it was definitely alive – but remained quite still in my hands. The rain began to fall harder, and I sped up again, practically running now, with my newfound catch in my cupped hands, my fingers over it, shielding it from the rain. I stopped for a moment and messed with my MP3 player again. Once I had some suitably epic-sounding music pumping through my headphones, I resumed running. I’ve always had a flair for the dramatic.
Once home, I placed the butterfly in a small plastic container and added a little grass for it to perch on. There was no way I would allow this butterfly to be added to the often chaotic "main jar" all my other insect pets lived in. No, this sickly butterfly would be quarantined, and released once it felt better. It rained all the rest of that day, but the next day was clear. I ventured outdoors once more, located a dandelion, and took it inside to the butterfly. I opened its container and took it in my hand, then I presented it with the dandelion in my other hand. Slowly, the monarch’s feeding tube uncurled and delicately poked into the head of the plant. Feeding a butterfly was one of my more invigorating experiences that year. When it was done, I gently placed the monarch back in its home, with the dandelion in case it wished for more nectar later.
The next day, I did a little research on monarch butterflies after wondering if the genders could be told apart. I wanted to know what sex my own captive was. A look at my old animal encyclopedias returned an answer: Male butterflies have a black spot on each wing, towards the middle, which contains a chemical used in mating season. Later, I took a look at my own monarch, and sure enough, when it opened its wings I saw the spots. My butterfly was male.
Naming has never been a strong suit of mine, and I called my butterfly simply "Mony" (pronounced moan-ey). For several days I looked Mony over, and every day he acted the same. His condition didn’t appear to be improving or worsening one way or the other.
One morning, before going on another daily excursion to the library, I took out Mony and just looked at him. He looked back, clinging to my finger and slowly opening and closing his wings, making no attempt to fly or flee. Suddenly he raised a foreleg and... waved. I found this little movement quite funny. There was no way an insect could understand human conditions like “waving” and the like - it must have just lost its balance a little. So I laughed it off, and returned Mony to his container.
But that evening, I returned from the library to find him lying on his side in his little plastic house. He was dead. Had Mony been trying to say goodbye? Obviously not, but I didn’t mind imagining that it was so.
The next week, I purchased a shadowbox at the local dollar store, and my mother helped me mount my deceased butterfly to it with pins. Once we were finished, the shadowbox went up on the wall and is still there today – a memory of my former pet, a pet I couldn’t save.
But this story is far from over.
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