Lynda and the Butterfly

When Lynda died on August 3rd we had many preparations to make for her celebration of life service.  It was really difficult to know where to even begin.  We were still dazed.

As we drove around the square in Oxford that Saturday morning, we noticed a beautiful orange butterfly.  It wasn't a monarch.  It wasn't exactly like the one in this picture.  It was different and it was beautiful.  I watched it flit and flutter around the flowers.  It temporarily took my mind off of my my sorrow. 

When we lived in Ft. Walton Beach we watched the monarchs migrate by the hundreds through the coast line.  It was incredibly awesome to see them by the hundreds.

After doing a few errands, we went back to Booneville until we could meet with the funeral home that afternoon at 4:00.  When we began walking up to the front door of Coleman's Funeral Home in Oxford, we saw a butterfly that looked very much like the one we had seen earlier in the day.  It was kind of odd to see a single butterfly on the square.   Even stranger to see another one that looked identical but late in the afternoon and in a completely different location.  We watched the butterfly hover around as Glenn met us at the door to begin making the final plans for Lynda's service. 


I thought it was rather an unusual butterfly when I saw it the day Lynda died.   Two locations in Oxford at two different times of the day.  It reminded me in my intense sadness that although I was grieving for losing  Lynda, she was free like the butterfly.  After two months, when my mother started talking about a butterfly on her porch, I asked her if it was a monarch.  When she said it wasn't, I asked her to describe it.  Her butterfly sounded just like the one we saw the day Lynda died.  Then she told me the most amazing thing.  The butterfly stayed around her front door.  Every time she went out front, the butterfly would fly around her.  It did that for a couple of days.  Then one day, the butterfly lit on her arm.  She said she just stood there and looked at the butterfly and wondered....  never in her 90 years had a butterfly just flown to her and perched on her arm.

She and I neither really had to wonder.  We accepted the precious gift that God shared through Lynda's life and the symbol of her new and improved life in heaven....