About a week after the shadowbox was added to our home's decor, my mom came home from work with a special guest. She had found another monarch butterfly in the parking lot at her place of employment. Thinking of me, she picked it up and stuck it in a little container, and then took it home. I accepted the gift warmly and inspected my latest acquisition. This butterfly was female. She was somehow in even worse condition than the male I had found two weeks before. One of her wings had a patch on it that was bubbly and wavy, like paper that has gotten wet and then dried out. Additionally, my mom had gotten the container from a coworker who smoked, so the butterfly had also been choking down nicotine for the last twenty minutes. I moved her into the same container I had used for the previous butterfly, and like the last "tenant", she spent most of her time clinging to grass and trying to gain strength.
As with the first one, I would take the female monarch out every day to hold in my hand, occasionally feeding it from dandelions. And unlike Mony, Mony The Second was starting to improve. She ignored her damaged wing and began making little fluttery jumps. With my door and window closed, I would take her out of the container each day and watch her attempt to fly. The first day she took off resulted in a clumsy, brief flight not unlike the Wright brothers' maiden voyage. Descending from my hand, she flapped and struggled her way about 3 feet in a downward arc before collapsing on my floor. I scooped her up and returned her to her container.
The next day she fared a bit better, traveling a little farther before landing on my bed. A few days later she took off from my hand, flew a complete circle around me, and came to rest in a perfect landing on my curtains. I applauded her progress. Returning her to her house with a fresh dandelion, I told her that tomorrow could be the big day.
It was a sunny early October morning. I had kept Mony the Second for about a week, and if she was strong enough, today would be her last day with me. My mom and I went outside, I with Mony the Second and she with a camera. My mom took several shots of me holding Mony the Second as she felt the crisp, clean outdoor air for the first time in a week. Mony the Second tested her wings. Open... close. Open... close. She fluttered a little but remained clinging to me. I held my hand up, allowing for a good takeoff point. All of a sudden her wings began to flap, and she leapt from my hand into the sky.
She started strong but began to sink, losing altitude quickly. For one terrible moment I thought she would crash, but Mony the Second regained her composure and began to climb again. She flew in a circle, then moved briefly over our house before changing course and moving off in a different direction. I watched the shrinking orange blur make its way along before she moved behind some trees. For a moment I saw her above the trees, and then she was gone.
"She's gone. She made it." I said. My mom stood next to me, having watched with a sense of wonder just a strong as my own.
And then we hugged each other, and I cried a little. I had done it. I had nursed a sick animal back to health. I wondered if Mony the Second realized that.
Animals may not feel human emotions, especially insects. But I can at least pretend that they do.
No comments:
Post a Comment