Your True Tales
January 2008 - Page 19
Butterflies and Reincarnation
by Terri Rimmer
One writer says that when it comes to people who die coming back in another form that it's all "a wishful fairy tale." I used to not believe in reincarnation so much, in fact not at all. I always used to watch that scene in Patch Adams where Robin Williams' character sees the butterfly after his girlfriend dies and is re-energized to want to live again after cursing God. I would see that scene and think, "Well, I'll never get a butterfly like that."
On New Year's Eve, 2005, my boyfriend Ruben of two years passed away from liver cancer, only two months after being diagnosed. It has been tough since then, an emotional time filled with depression, suicidal thoughts, and desperate feelings. This past August (2007) in the U.S. in Fort Worth, Texas, where I live, on one particularly suicidal day, I stood outside my back door wanting to die again. Then a yellow and orange butterfly started flying around me and landed in the center of my chest. It sat there for a moment flappings its wings in and out then disappeared. I saw the same butterfly again on the front porch, flying around and round in circles.
A few days later I saw it again in the garage in the middle of the day, perched on one of my fake Christmas trees as I did laundry. It sat there for a few minutes, then I left it where it perched as I closed the door and went back in the house. Another day the butterfly landed on my shoulder and flew in circles around me.
I shared this with my grief group and the minister who taught the workshop thought it was something. I liked to think maybe it was Ruben or something spiritual like that. I have never had the same-colored butterfly continue to show up for two weeks like this. Then I saw the butterfly again hanging out in the awning of my back door. Maybe it's nothing, but then maybe not. "I fully believe in spiritual things like that," my mom says. "I've sensed a bird's presence as my mother's being or a sister. It's hard to describe, I know but be glad that their spirit is around you."
Anna thinks for a butterfly to go into a garage is very strange. "I am often visited by something living when I am thinking of a departed loved one," said Anna. "This is the strangest to date: I used to live next door to an old lady who collected hummingbird knickknacks and pictures. Before she died, she gave me one of her hummingbird plaques that had a music box on it. Well, to be honest, it's not my style but I was touched and have kept it, of course. Several months ago I was going through a box of miscellaneous items and found it. I said a little prayer to the old lady, Mavis. Nothing heavy, just a little 'hello' and asked in my prayer if she is with Gary (her son who died a year later) and Reba (her best friend who died a year after Gary)."
Anna didn't think any more about it, she said. Later that week she had the back door standing open and a hummingbird flew in and flew around her big back room. Anna turned off the ceiling fan and the bird landed on one of the blades as it slowed down. When the fan stopped completely, the bird and Anna stared as each other for a few seconds and then it flew out the door. "I didn't remember about my prayer to Mavis for awhile, but I immediately felt like I'd been visited by a spirit of some sort," said Anna. "I believe all these things that seem like something are something, because those that have died are only a heartbeat away at all times. So when something occurs that inspires us to think of them or feel them - it is significant."
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