Thirty-five years ago, on the day before Valentine’s Day, Butterfly Day was born. Its birth arrived, as all births do, with pain and the promise of new life, only in this case, the ‘new life’ was still in the cocoon.
My youngest daughter, Nina had just turned seven, and I had been watching her morph from being robust and steady, into being angular and temperamentally distant, interspersed with emotional outbursts, within two weeks. As was her tradition, she had had a fever on her birthday in mid January. She had rallied for the most part, and the doctor assured me that her weight loss and listlessness was a combination of post fever symptoms and a growth spurt. I accepted this superficially, but felt that ‘something was not right’ (to quote ‘Madeline’). Our nuclear family had recently shrunk from four to three, with a divorce, and I felt that perhaps the stress of this, clearly felt by her older sister but denied by Nina, was subconsciously creating this dis ease. The doctor assured me otherwise. Two days before Valentine’s Day, I watched Nina eat an entire pizza, cry because her stomach hurt, but claiming that she was still hungry. I called the doctor and he told me to relax. The next morning I watched Nina get dressed and as she pulled up her trousers, that had fit her well one week before, they fell down around her hips and she started to cry. That was IT for me. I dropped her sister off at school and drove Nina over to the doctor’s office, no appointment, no warning, I marched in and said “There is something wrong with my daughter and I need you to run tests or DO SOMETHING to find out WHAT.” The doctor was disgusted with me, the office people looked at me as if I was a blithering nuisance, but I held my ground with their ‘I’m sorry but you need to make an appointment, we are booked today”.
“NO”, said I. “I am not going anywhere.” And at that moment Nina slid into a chair, half fainting.
Fifteen minutes later we were driving at a break neck speed to the hospital, with a lightening quick stop at school to whisk her sister into the back seat. Nina had been diagnosed with extraordinarily high blood sugar and Type 1 Diabetes. She was admitted into the hospital, where she stayed for several weeks, while she was stabilized and taught how to handle this new reality. Meanwhile, of course, she became the expert on the children’s floor, on every patient’s current situation and what buttons needed to be pushed when their machines beeped.
There was a cloud of childhood knowing that surrounded us with the simplicity of this, as this crisis climaxed on the day before Valentine’s Day, and the knowing that chocolate hearts and sweet little goodies were a part of it all and how suddenly this was different, forever, in Nina’s life.
In a flash, Butterfly Day was born. This was the day, dubbed in this moment, in a hospital room in Charleston, South Carolina, from which glorious wings would grow and transformations of unknown varieties would come to be. From this day forth we would celebrate Butterfly Day with butterflies and soul knowing.
As a write this, now, thirty-five years later, Nina is a most exquisite, brave, powerful Queen Butterfly. We have each grown wings in various colors, shapes and sizes, and we are ever grateful for the reminder that out of what appears to be ‘disastrous news’, strength, courage, faith, beauty, and transformative growth are alive and well.