Butterflies

Beautiful and graceful, varied and enchanting, small but approachable, butterflies lead you to the sunny side of life.  And everyone deserves a little sunshine.  ~Jeffrey Glassberg

I've always had this "thing" with butterflies. I don't know why, I just have always found them to be beautiful and enchanting. Some say a butterfly is symbolic to spirits and souls and others say that a butterfly(since it goes through four stages) represents transition and changes in life.

I will get back to the butterfly story in a minute. First y'all should know that today is my best friends birthday. DonEtta would have been 29 today. One more year from thirty, which is completely crazy because it doesn't seem at all that she should be that old, then again I am 27 and that doesn't seem right either.

I can't help but picture what life would be like if she was still here with us today. Would she be married? Would she be having a baby? We would be living in Texas, living it up in Ft. Worth, like we had planned. With her, there is no telling. She always had guys lined up around the corner waiting for her to just dump the current guy she was with, just so they could get a chance to date her. If only I could be so lucky...that's one thing she could have given me before she passed, her ability to attract every guy on this planet.

There isn't a day that goes by that I don't think about her. That I don't talk to her, ask her for advice...even though she has been gone for three years, there are days when I go to pick up my phone to call her and I realize I can't.  That is the worst feeling in the world. Wanting to talk to someone only to realize that you will never talk to them again. Except, I know I will. Someday I will see her again and that gives me peace of mind. Until then, I will relish in the signs that she sends me...like the signs in butterflies.

A few months after she passed away, we went to visit her grave for the first time. I remember standing there with my dog bella and bella ran right up to her tombstone and put her paws on it. I also distinctively remember an orange and black butterfly floating around us and landing on bella and then landing on her tombstone. A part of me, couldn't help me think that it was her, her showing us a sign that she was there and that she was ok. I believe in signs, or as my bff Miss Football wrote in her blog a while ago, "Postcards from Heaven."  I am stealing this insert from her...

"Nearly all of us either have had or have heard of an experience in which a soul already departed reaches back to those of us who have been left behind in this world with a reassuring touch. Sometimes it's no more than a whisper, a familiar smell in the air, or just the feeling of presence as vivid as when the loved on was still alive. These moments are just that...moments, a glimpse behind the veil; not a letter from heaven, but a postcard...."

Yesterday, it was such a beautiful day, I was sitting on the porch with my mom and this butterfly flew and landed right on my arm. I just stared at it. I didn't even attempt to shake it off. I would have sit there all day if I could, just watching that butterfly.  I never wanted to let it go, because I knew in my heart that it was a sign and maybe I am crazy, but I don't care. For that brief moment I felt I was with my best friend again. I stood up to walk off and the butterfly was still on my arm...I even moved my arm a little and the butterfly came back. I know to some it may just be a butterfly and I know that it is....but I also believe that when you lose someone you love, they are always around you...just sometimes you need to feel it, you need to see it.

With that being said, Happy birthday to my best friend who is now my angel in heaven. I miss you terribly each and every day. Thank you for watching over all of us who loved you and most of all...thank you for the butterfly.

Xoxo