“It’s easier to run down the mountain than to walk it!” my partner shouted to me as we were descending Humpback Rock. Except, he wasn’t the one carrying the backpack with our waters and half-eaten charcuterie box from the day before (precariously wrapped in a cup and some napkins).

This usually means finding a more fluid, almost ballerina-like, gait: left foot launches, hands grip the backpack straps and pull it tight against my body as the right foot lands and the right knee bends, loosen the backpack again as the right foot launches, hands tighten the backpack straps, left foot lands, left knee bends, loosen my grip, launch, grip, land, bend, loosen, launch, grip, land, bend, loosen…. This continues with a slightly choppy momentum, changing the length of each stride to adjust for rocks, other hikers, or steeper grades in the trail until we reach the end. I didn’t fall on my ass. Huzzah!

By that point the inertia had taken me, however, and I nearly missed you. Lying there on the ground, still as a winter morning.

I remember why I picked you up. I wasn’t sure if you were still alive, but you had fallen right in the path of the parking lot road and I didn’t want anyone to run you over.

Once in my hand, I could see something was off, with tattered wings and sluggish movements. A quick internet search confirmed what I had suspected. You were dying.

I’m not sure why I kept you with me. I went over to the field, picked a flower, and brought it back to the car where I had set you down. Now two things would die today, and one was my doing.

I continued to hold you in my hand , your legs moving occasionally in response to my own movements, growing less and less responsive until you slowly passed away.

I know nothing of being a butterfly or of dying. I know you were a beautiful, female, Eastern Tiger Swallowtail. I know you once had a previous life that was grounded and insatiably hungry, but I do not know if you remembered it. I do not know if you understood mortality in those final moments or if you were puzzled by my human desire to connect with you as you made a final transformation.

I do not know why I kept your body even after your awareness slipped away. Yet now your corporeal being lives in my house, even though you are now gone.

Perhaps it is a strange sort of gratitude, but thank you, sweet swallowtail, for allowing me to intrude on your death. Even if you did not ask me to.

---

I am still deciding if this is morbid, keeping this butterfly’s body. Death has always made me uncomfortable and anxious. I still struggle with the loss of my two dogs and feel their absence everyday. That discomfort comes out as humour and weirdness…so here is me, dealing with the concept of death (even if it is “just” a butterfly):

A final note: I mentioned my discomfort and anxiety around death. This may be, in part, my lack of spirituality and religiosity. It is so final, in my mind.

But what I do know, something we can learn from the butterfly, is two things.

First, nature is incredible and full of surprises. As a human, I do not change form or live two, separate, distinct lives, so it is not something I can truly understand.

Second, death is a great unknown. Whatever happens to us after death a secret to us, and known only by those who have died. Whether this is heaven, reincarnation, or something else, who could say.

The only thing we do know is that it is this mystery, this unknown, that is both what generates our fear and our hope. Perhaps we are all like the butterfly – we just haven’t undergone our metamorphose yet.