Butterfly Becky

I love this picture of my
daughter in her nursing school
uniform! Happy birthday,
Becky Gillette!

One day long ago she was missing from the house,
and when I found her in the front yard,
I asked her what she was doing. "Chasing
butterflies," she said, which made perfect sense
at the time.

One day as a teen, she went missing
from the house, and when she decided to
give home another chance, we walked on eggshells
for awhile. Given the circumstances, this
made perfect sense, too.

And then she moved away to join a man, then
join the army, marry. And we missed her
in the house but loved that she was happy, which
made perfect sense.

Until it didn't any more.

We still miss her. But we celebrate the newness
in her life, the one no one else has handed her,
suggested, pushed, the one she found because
she never stopped looking for the missing part
to her heart that she didn't find with butterflies,
or somewhere in rebellion, or with this man or that, but
in the joy of motherhood and setting goals and
finding who she is, a butterfly who's spread
her wings and found a breeze to carry her along
to places she could only dream of long ago.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2013