a sunday short

butterfly fly fly away

This is about butterflies.

Photo by Suzanne D. Williams on Unsplash

this is a love letter to parents.

dear moms and dads,
let your children be butterflies.

if you did not have the privilege when you were little,
at home or more likely at school,
of caring for caterpillars till their release
as butterflies,
i’d like to give you my memory from my life
both as a student and as a teacher.

and the memory i want to share,
the memory that has prompted this letter,
is the memory of what needs to happen
at the moment of a butterfly’s emergence
into the world. 

my memory is a sad one;
the result of what was believed at the time
was a loving act
of help,
of compassion,
of love. 
we just didn’t understand
what was really needed.

you see,
we were witnessing the emergence of a couple of the butterflies
we had tended since their larval form
in the soft-netted tent given to our class for exactly that reason.
and we did so with all the impatience of 7 year-olds who were also
at the start of comprehending that important things need time
to occur.
and on their own.

one butterfly looked to be having a hard time emerging from its chrysalis,
so we gently nudged it forward, we opened the shell further,
allowing it more room to bring its wings out. 
we were helping life to emerge!
and we were proud of ourselves
to be easing the life of another 
at the start of theirs,
and at the start of ours
(for we had so much still to learn);
this butterfly was about to teach us 
the most important of lessons—
the one it’s also about to teach you. 

when the butterfly broke free completely,
we waited to watch the full unfurling of its wings
so that we could release it, too, 
with its kin,
out into the wide wide world. 
but the wings never unfurled. 
they remained shriveled as if they were 
permanently molded from the confines of its
safe cocoon. 

we did not allow it to gain strength
through its struggle of birth.

if a butterfly cannot unfurl its wings,
to expose its beauty to the world,
it cannot express who it is meant to be.
and it will die. 
like this one did. 

we were being taught the importance 
of the struggle of emergence,
of the pain of birth. 

for it is only after the struggle
that the beautiful of the butterfly,
realized,
comes fully into the world.

its metamorphosis 
doesn’t complete itself 
when it is still in the chrysalis.

its metamorphosis
is complete
when the world witnesses the beauty
that it is
after it has emerged
and it has breathed life
into the magnificence of its own wings,
through the struggle,
because of the struggle, 
and spread them wide, ready to become finally
that purpose for which it was intended. 

which always,
mom and dad,
always,
can only become fully realized
without your interference. 
and through struggle. 

who they truly are will only be seen
by the world,
when you let go of them,
and allow them,

allow them,

to fly away. 

This was a love letter to parents.

I’ve been writing Postcards from the Principal Offices I once inhabited. So kids, my kids, the thousands of students I call my kids, have been on my mind. I can’t remember exactly when I wrote this poem, but I came across it the other day and it felt right to include it among the postcards—between postcards.

This IS a love letter to parents. It is a poem about Love. True Love. The kind of Love that knows that the Love that is often the greatest benefit for the ones on the receiving end, is often the Love that is the hardest to give by those on the giving end.

~ k

Photo by Krzysztof Niewolny on Unsplash

BTW: This never really was about butterflies. But you guessed that.

Photo by 🇸🇮 Janko Ferlič on Unsplash

Photo by Omar Elsharawy on Unsplash

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