An emotional monarch moment

[John Beaulieu]

My whole school staff was in tears on Friday but they were good tears. The story starts a few years ago when unfortunately one of our staff members lost her five year old son to cancer. At some point between his diagnosis and his death, he wished that he were a caterpillar because he could change into something beautiful. He told his mother that after he died he would be something beautiful for her.

Fast forward to Friday. Friday was the 25 anniversary of the Marathon of Hope started by Terry Fox, a young man who lost his leg, then eventually his life to cancer. Twenty-five years ago he started his run across Canada. Unfortunately he did not make it because his cancer returned mid-run. He died about a year later, but not before wishing that we would not forget about his run. Every year, people run to raise money for cancer in his name.

This year, at 12 noon on Friday, school children across Canada ran. My school was no exception.

I had ten chrysalis in my classroom, two of which were ready to emerge. during the run, one of the butterflies did emerge. My students were so excited and because they knew the story of the teacher who lost her son, they wanted to share the butterfly with her. The ran out to find her, brought her into my class, made her close her eyes as they walked her from the door to the cage. When she got to the cage, she was told she could open her eyes. Let's just say there was not a dry eye in my class. She took one look at this beautiful Monarch, smiled, burst into tears and kept saying "He's here!"

From what I understand, she was so happy but yet so emotional, she couldn't teach for the rest of the day, and all the teachers agreed that it was okay if she just savoured the moment. She told everyone she saw and as I said everyone was in tears by the end of the day.

That is my Monarch moment.

Brenda

[dannus plex]

I'm an adult oncology nurse and Monarch tagger living in London. What a great story!!!

[Teresa]

What a beautiful story, thanks for sharing

[John Beaulieu]

Brenda had three butterflies emerge that day. The school grounds have no gardens (yet) so she brought the three monarchs home to release them in our yard where there is still plenty of flowers including tropical milkweed. We took a photo of the butterflies and Brenda brought it into school for the teacher that had such an emotional day. This teacher likes to write poetry and had written a poem about the day and the butterflies. She framed the poem with the photo. It is really amazing what an impact a butterfly can have on a person!

The butterflies fed for a short while in our garden, but looked at each other (at least they seemed to) as if to say "gotta go, gotta go", flew high to catch the wind and headed south.

John

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[Hummy]

Your story brought tears to my eyes too. Thanks for sharing your heartwarming story. Very touching!

Louise,
Haliburton, Ontario