Dear Mom,

What’s it like in Heaven?

I can sense you standing side by side

With a God we never believed in.

You’ve never seen your halo;

You’ve never dared to look

That high

Up

Beyond the ground.

As a child, I saw stars in your eyes

Truth in your soul and beauty in your voice

You taught me to sing, to dance, to love the little intricacies of life

Harnessing the mercy to lift a poor caterpillar off the road.

“It doesn’t matter if it turns into a butterfly,” you told me,

Helping me place the gentle creature on the leaf of an elderflower,

“Even moths have wings to beat

And places to fly.”

As we took our walks up and down the street

I stopped for every fuzzy caterpillar

And lifted it up.

We called them wooly bears;

Do you remember that?

Wooly bears, so warm and fuzzy

They squirmed when we picked them up

Not knowing what life they had in store

As a moth.

And not a butterfly.

Did you know that

Moths are just as colorful as butterflies?

Or did you never see beyond the earth of your own eyes

Reflected back in the mirror

And crippling the wings of two little moths--

One fully grown

One yet to bloom

I saw the world in you as a wooly bear

But my chrysalis soured by the hand

Of your self deprecation.

Unable to see your own wisdom

Your own halo

As it applied to yourself

So, in the wake of my own reflection, let me remind you

Even moths have wings to beat

And places to fly

And songs to sing

At Heaven’s side.

And maybe there you’ll finally see

The butterfly you left behind in me.

Love,

Your daughter who strives to illuminate your hidden beauty

And carry your mark.