Sam's First Caterpillar

There is a giant milkweed, almost twice my height, across from the elementary school. Lately, the kids stop and search for monarch caterpillars to bring home. Some are as small as my pinky nail, but within a week, they are almost the size of the whole finger. The kids like to put them in empty apple juice containers along with some extra leaves and a pencil to climb. We watch them grow, make a chysallis, and then turn into butterflies. MOST of them turn into butterflies, at least. Some never come out of their cocoons. Some never fully form their cocoons and die. But most of them sit on top of our piano as plastic-bottled miracles. Did you know that a butterfly's cocoon looks like it is stitched together with perfect gold thread on the edges? Did you know that a new butterfly will walk comfortably across your hand until the wind swoops it up into the natural world?

Sam came running home from school today, sobbing loudly. I ran downstairs to meet him, and his body was shaking. Between sobs, he told me that today was the first time he found his own caterpillar with no one helping him to find it. He put it on a leaf and ran home ahead of Jane. While he was in the back field, a block away from home, the wind blew the caterpillar off the leaf and onto the ground. He looked around and stepped back to see if he could find it, but he accidentally stepped on the caterpillar. Sam even described in horror how the caterpillar was smashed green on the ground. Once the story was out, the tears came even more heavily. His body fell against me, and I held him as he cried. He tried to calm down, taking slower breaths and wiping his eyes, pushing himself up from me, but then he would think of it again, squeeze his eyes shut, and fall forward. He was too sad to let it go right away. I think I have felt that same feeling, hearing of the shock of someone's death. It is a sick feeling of all that is irretrievable. The day that was one color darkens under the shadow of sadness. Then you forget for a few minutes, only to remember and meet the loss unexpectedly around the next corner. It wasn't long, but for a few minutes Sam and I sat at the kitchen table and mourned the death of his first caterpillar.