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The word “butterfly’ derives from Old English. A butterfly is scientifically defined as, “Any of numerous nectar-feeding insects with two pairs of large, typically brightly colored, wings, which together with moths make up the order Lepidoptera. Butterflies undergo complete metamorphosis, the larval stage being a caterpillar and the pupal stage a chrysalis.” (“Butterfly”, English Dictionary). Although, the term “butterflies” is often used to describe a fluttering sensation in the stomach because of apprehensive excitement or nervousness.

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Jennifer Lopez’s hit song “Get on the Floor” blasts from the TV as I play “Just Dance”, hitting every move with all the “oomph” I can muster. Mesmerized by the cartoon character dancing on the screen, I try to hit every move perfectly. Nearing the end of the dance routine as I start to breathe heavily, my sister Emily calls out my name. Emily has three friends over today: Alison, Kiah, and McKinley, all of them sixteen and sophomores in high school. I turn eleven soon and…man! I cannot wait to be their age. The sound of teenage giggling ringing through the air leads me right to the stairs where my sister calls out for me. There at the top of the stairs, stands my big sister. Her platinum blonde hair is thrown into a messy ponytail, hair falling loosely around her face. Emily’s height reaches about five foot four inches, and I slowly but surely am closing our size gap. Though we near the same size, I’ve gained enough wisdom over the years not to pick fights with her; she can pin me to the floor, myself flailing underneath her in less than ten seconds. Emily doesn’t take shit from anybody, let alone her little sister. Her lively blue eyes meet mine while her smile widens, flashing me with her perfectly straight, pearly white teeth. “Blanca, can you record us really quick?” she says, not really asking but just assuming I will say yes. And she’s right, I would never say no to being around her and her friends!

I watched those four teenage girls play countless games on the varsity softball team. Every girl on the team becoming a role model of mine and currently the starting third and first basemen, center fielder, and catcher giggle upstairs in my house. Butterflies start fluttering in my stomach, tickling my abdomen. Now’s my time to shine, to be the cool little sister. “Sure,” I say as nonchalant as a ten-year-old possibly can. “Thanks. Catch!” Emily says, tossing me her phone. I open her phone and get the camera ready to record. I won’t mess this up! I want to be the best camera girl. “Tell me when to start,” I say feeling a little nervous. I’m not sure what to expect to see through the camera.

All four girls bounce out of Emily’s room pushing a giant, white mattress across the floor towards the stairs. They flop it onto the ground in front of the top step, lining it up perfectly with the edge of the stair. One by one, they board the mattress, McKinley in the front, then Emily, Kiah, and Alison. Each is sitting with their legs around the one in front of them. They each grab the sides of the mattress, folding themselves into what looked like a giant taco. “Okay, ready!” Emily says, determination furrowing her brow. I hurriedly press record knowing I have one chance to impress them. They all countdown to one in unison and then propel their momentum forward. The mattress falls over the first step and before I know it, they are barreling down the stairs. Squealing and laughing, they are heading straight for me on their modern-day magic carpet. I jump out of the way at the very last second, keeping the camera on them as the front of the mattress smashes into the wall, right where I was standing at the bottom of the stairs. They burst into laughter, crying, and wheezing from lack of breath. I end the video at that concluding moment. Feeling proud, I smile and giggle saying, “I got it!”. Wow!! They are so cool! This is exactly what I want to do with my friends when I’m sixteen.

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A butterfly’s life cycle can be described in three stages: egg, caterpillar, pupa, and adult butterfly. First, small eggs are laid by an adult female butterfly on a plant, preferably milkweed. Eggs can be laid during any season, depending on the species of butterfly.

When the egg hatches, a larva caterpillar is formed. In this second stage, the caterpillar’s most important job is to eat and eat and eat. It devours plants, grows, and stores this food for later stages in its life. When a caterpillar is finally full grown and stops eating, it becomes a pupa.

The pupa stage is when a caterpillar has suspended itself from a branch in a protected area and has formed a silk cocoon around itself. While inside a cocoon, many biological changes are happening. Over weeks and sometimes even longer than a month, the fat sluggish caterpillar inside the dark cocoon becomes a delicate, graceful butterfly with colorful wings (Drexel University).

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The busy streets of Salt Lake City bustle outside the glass windows, complimenting the hip ambiance of the barbershop. The black walls gleam, the large windows letting in floods of natural light. Every employee has a unique style: large tattoos, punk haircuts, and face piercings. Each piercing and tattoo adding insight to the individual’s personality and life story. The shop is packed with vintage dark leather salon chairs and brown warn wooden benches for waiting customers. Emily, newly nineteen, sits in a boxy barber chair in front of a large mirror. Gazing at herself, long platinum blonde hair flutters around her shoulders. There to support her, my family and I hold our breath as we watch the barber run her fingers through Emily’s hair. With a few gentle strokes of the hair clippers along Emily’s scalp, her head is now bald. Long blonde hair floats to the ground around her feet. A warm tear slides down my cheek.

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Cornell University questioned the effects of high-speed rain drops on fragile insect wings, like that of butterflies. Thus was born the study, “How a Raindrop Gets Shattered on Biological Surfaces”, conducted by professors of biology and environmental engineering.

Raindrops pose a dangerous risk to small insects. If their wings get too wet or if they aren’t warm enough, they can’t fly. Krishna Ramanujan writes, “In analyzing the film (from the study), they found that when a drop hits the surface (of a wing), it ripples and spreads. A nanoscale wax layer repels the water, while larger microscale bumps on the surface creates holes in the spreading raindrop.” The professors conclude that the shattering action reduces contact time with the surface of the wing, limiting the impact force. This also reduces the heat transfer between the droplet of water and the muscles in a delicate butterfly wing, ensuring that the insect is still warm enough to fly (Ramanujan, Krishna).

Even with biological advantages that prevent damage from inevitable high-speed rains, a butterfly’s wings are still risk. The best option for the minuscule species is to hide under foliage with their wings tucked in tight until the rain ceases.

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Families scurry around my mother, sister, and I as we explore the happiest place on earth.

Kids laughing, crying, and sleeping in their parents’ arms as the sun sets, concluding the long day. Every person dressed to the nines with Disney paraphernalia. The smell of churros and turkey legs fills the air, clouding my mind with delicious desire. As I push my sister in her wheelchair, we generate several looks of sympathy from adults and curious stares from children. Emily’s frail bald head slumps onto her arm and rightfully so. She wanted to go on just about every roller coaster ride today, so we did. She’s tired of the rides, tired of the stares, tired of the questions from strangers: “how old are you sweetie?”, “what type of cancer do you have?”, and “how long have you been in treatment?”. Each question snaps us back to reality, solemnly reminding us that this is actually our life. Emily, my mom, and I precisely choose to leave out the depressing facts when answering these questions. It’s been four months since she was diagnosed. Emily’s health and energy rapidly declines as this ugly monstrous cancer claims her body as its own. After all this, Emmy’s Minnie Mouse ears remain perky atop her pale head.

Emily announced that I am the only one allowed to push her wheelchair. She is so frail and sick from chemo that a mere crack in the sidewalk hurts her bones, muscles, feeding tube, and the pick-line to her heart. I drive the wheelchair intently watching for every crack and bump, not wanting to add to the list of things that cause her pain. How is it that the sister I watched competitively play sports for years, is now bound to a wheelchair? I never thought I would be pushing the lively girl who hit homeruns and dove to catch fly balls in her red dirt covered catcher’s gear. The girl who chased me up the stairs, and teasingly sat on me, countless times, until I tapped out. The girl who played just dance with me, gave me makeovers, and invited me into her room for “girl talk” which always happened to be about boys. That girl’s body may be weakening and deifying her right now, but Emily’s fiery spirit has never been stronger.

As we walk through Toon Town, we stop at a nearby kiosk filled with classic souvenirs. The shop embodies every little kid’s dream, overflowing with princesses, stuffed animals, candy, shirts, and most importantly Mickey Mouse ear headbands. As I slowly push her through the makeshift isles of colorful toys and trinkets, her attention stops on a stand of mickey mouse necklaces with dainty silver chains. The necklaces are separated by month, each Mickey logo made with that month’s birthstone. She grabs a July necklace for herself and a December for me. After we pay the cashier, Emily hands me both necklaces asking me to put hers on. I smile, gently clasping the ruby Mickey Mouse around her neck. Weak and shaking, she slowly holds up my blue topaz necklace. She clasps the necklace around my neck as I fight hard against the tears welling up at my eyes and the ball forming in my throat. Disneyland and these necklaces will forever remind me of this moment. We will forever be connected, soul to soul, by these dainty silver chains.

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“The Butterfly”

The last, the very last,
So richly, brightly, dazzlingly yellow. Perhaps if the sun’s tears would sing against a white stone….
Such, such a yellow
Is carried lightly ‘way up high.
It went away I’m sure because it wished
to kiss the world good-bye.
For seven weeks I’ve lived in here, Penned up inside this ghetto.
But I have found what I love here.
The dandelions call to me
And the white chestnut branches in the court. Only I never saw another butterfly. That butterfly was the last one. Butterflies don’t live here,
in the ghetto.
Pavel Friedmann, June 4, 1942

A Jewish poet, by the name of Pavel Friedmann, was imprisoned during the Holocaust in the Terezin concentration camp. In the depths of darkness and genocide, Friedmann wrote the heart-wrenching poem, “The Butterfly.”. The Holocaust Museum Houston published, “The butterfly – with its story of rebirth and transformation into new life – has now become a symbol of freedom from oppression, intolerance, and hatred ever since Friedmann wrote his poem about life in the Terezin camp and the fact that he never saw another butterfly there. He died in Auschwitz in 1944.”

Pavel Friedmann was one of many Jewish artists, writers, and educators that inspired “The Butterfly Project”, an organization that uses education, art, and testimony from the Holocaust to cultivate empathy and social responsibilities in the classroom (The Butterfly Project).

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A small Christmas tree in the corner lit the sterile hospital room. I sat on the bench covered with memory foam pads where I had slept the night before. Emily, a sickly pale grey from the medications coursing through her veins, lays in her bed in the center of the room. Constant beeping and whirring of IV’s and monitors interrupt my thoughts; Hooked to her body, monitoring every breath and heartbeat, they administer morphine. Yesterday, the nurses moved Emily into a larger suite because Dr. Akerly broke the news we dreadfully anticipated; Emily had days to live. The cancer had taken over her body, spreading from, first, the fist-size tumor in her lungs, then, to every inch of her lymph nodes and bones. A music box plays softly ringing Christmas music creating a cacophony of machine beeping and what used to be joyous holiday music. Sniffling family somberly fill the room, no one seeming to have gotten more than three hours of sleep. Emily lifts her bed to an upright position asking for one of the boxes in the stack by her bedside. Those patronizing and haunting boxes hold the last Christmas gifts she will ever buy. Emily spent the majority of her final waking hours that month thoughtfully buying gifts for her friends and family. The gifts’ purpose is for each of us to have something to remember her with before she leaves us for good. She smiles weakly as she hands me a small box. With a red splotchy face and swollen eyes, I look through my tears and carefully open the box to find a timelessly elegant gold watch.

My family gathers in the hospital room after all the gifts have been given. Being a religious family, my grandpa and uncles gather around Emily to give her a priesthood blessing. As we bow our heads and close our eyes, those strong men bless her with peace, comfort, and relief from her mortal battle. I can’t hear the mumbling words of the prayer as my mind races uncontrollably. Like a broken record, the words “my sister is dying” float through the black empty space in my brain. As the blessing ends, words cease to comfort the quiet sobs that fill the room. Darkening the thick invasive sadness that plagues our hearts, Emily’s pained and pleading voice cries out asking, “Why didn’t it work?”

Two days later Emily was blessed with relief from her unbearable pain and poisonous cancer. She was freed on Dec. 22nd at 2pm. Her soul fluttered away, like a beautiful Monarch butterfly, graceful and joyously liberated. I counted every shallow breath until her very last one.

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In the last twenty years, the Monarch butterfly population has plummeted by eighty percent (Monarch Butterfly). This decline is mainly hypothesized to be due to the decrease of milkweed plants for butterflies to lay their eggs. Joseph Belsky of Frontiers in Environmental Science delved into researching the issue and discovered, “Since monarchs are larval host plant specialists, declines in landscape composition of milkweed directly influences essential components of their survival such as increasing both intraspecific larval competition and the searching time that ovipositing females must invest in looking for milkweed.” Milkweed has largely been diminished from agricultural fields. Researchers discovered milkweed declined by 40% between 1999 and 2014 resulting in the potential monarch host capacity declining by 71% over the same timeframe. They calculate that agricultural milkweeds contain an average of 3.9 times more monarch eggs per stem than those in non-agricultural settings. Turning native grassland habitats into large-scale commercial crop production widely explains the loss of milkweed stems, in turn declining the butterfly population (Belsky).

It has also been discovered to a lesser extent that habitat destruction because of deforestation in the overwintering sites in Mexico and inconsistent climatic conditions have contributed to the recent decline of monarch butterflies (Belsky). Recent research and discoveries continue to raise awareness for these beautiful insects. Many conservation efforts have been made and are on the rise to protect the magnificent butterfly species.

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It is December 27th, 2017. Five days after my world turned upside down and the day before my thirteenth birthday. I slowly open the front door of the old farmhouse I have called home for twelve years. The once comforting brick house now seems empty and broken with a dull, cruel world waiting right past the frozen twigs of the once blooming lilac bushes that barricade the front yard. Dressed in a black turtleneck and floor-length skirt, I step outside into the never-ending, all-devouring snow. I take a deep inhale of the mountain air, the cold burning my lungs and nostrils. Yet, I feel nothing…just empty inside. I have no more tears left, my mind detached from my body, and in a complete state of shock. I squint up at the blinding sky wondering if she can see me right now from way up there. As if in answer to my silent question, a small white butterfly flutters aimlessly through the sky.

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Indigenous forest communities of central Mexico believe Monarch butterflies to be sacred and messengers from a higher power. Tia Merotto of the Smithsonian gathers, “According to pre-Hispanic folklore, the migrating butterflies carried the souls of ancestors visiting from the afterlife. For centuries, Mexico’s monarchs have served as a powerful cultural symbol of connecting the living to the dead.” Locals cherish their presence and have always treated them with respect, as they would treat the souls of their ancestors.

The symbolism of butterflies in Mexican culture is influenced by Aztec beliefs of the obsidian butterfly goddess, Itzapapalotl. Ancient stone carvings and paintings of the goddess depict her as a female warrior with fangs, claws of an eagle, and butterfly wings. Legend tells that Itzapapalotl was expelled from a heavenly paradise called Tamoanchan and cast down to earth. She is alleged to be mother figure and guardian of Aztec warriors. Warriors believed after dying, they could return to earth and lead serene peaceful lives as butterflies (Butterflies | Mesoamerican Cultures and Their Histories).

Today, during Day of the Dead celebrations, Monarch butterfly imagery can often be found between altars, candles, sugar skulls, and marigold flowers. At festivities, the enlightening presence of butterflies radiates from dancers emulating the insect’s graceful flight while wearing bright monarch-inspired costumes (Merotto).

The founder of the Butterfly Biosphere Reserve, Jose Luis Alvarez Alcala, says in an interview with Merotto, “When you’re surrounded by millions of butterflies, and you’re looking at the spectacle of them hanging in the trees, or flying around you, it’s a very magical feeling. It’s like being in a holy place.”

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My hair whips at my back from underneath my neon helmet as I hold tightly to the boy in front of me, who I had merely met two days prior. Squeezing his waist tightly, we weave around cars and zoom through the streets of downtown Salt Lake. As the wind kisses my arms and face, I become more comfortable on the back of the bright red motorcycle. I loosen one of my arms and wave to my two roommates with the two other boys on the black and blue motorcycles behind me. They laugh and wave back excitedly; I also met them, my roommates, for the first time this week. I absorb my surroundings, the bustling streets, and tall buildings nothing like the small farming town in Idaho where I grew up. The three boys park the bikes at the capitol building, and we dismount to sit in grass. Basking in the moment and the sunlight, the six of us talk and laugh as we debrief the excitement and experience of my roommates and I’s first motorcycle ride. I take in the white capitol building in front of me, remembering every time I’ve passed it before. Before being when my family and I would drive to the Huntsman Cancer Institute to visit my sister while she endured her chemotherapy and radiation treatments. Every weekend for six months, I watched the capitol building as a blur through the car windows. Now, in a whole new stage of life, I observe this building. Ominously, in the stage of life my sister was just starting before her future was viciously taken.

Later that night, in my apartment bedroom that’s the size of a walk-in closet, I stared at my blank white walls. I brought my mom’s old picture frames that she used to decorate her small college townhome with me to hang in my room. The townhome where three little girls ran wild, while she as a single mother attended Utah State. One of the frames, small but with a deep brown thick wooden border, leaves a compact 3-inch square at its center. Inside that square, I framed a real preserved yellow butterfly that was gifted to me by my oldest sister. The butterfly warmly reminds me of Emily’s bright sunshine spirit and flowery smile. I reach up and hang the frame right above my bed where I will never fail to see it. Every day, it will shine above me as I come home from college adventures, hurriedly get ready for class, and diligently do hours of homework. Throughout my life, butterflies have appeared when I have needed them the most. Fate blew the wind south, directing the beautifully aimless butterflies. Pulling me, soul to soul, I followed those butterflies to Utah State.

Works Cited

“Butterfly, N.” Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford UP, December 2023, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/3769499063.

Rattner Price, Cheryl. The Butterfly Project, 4 Jan. 2024, thebutterflyprojectnow.org/. Holocaust Museum Houston. “Our Inspiration.” The Butterfly Project / Holocaust Museum Houston, 2024, butterflies.hmh.org/about/our- inspiration/#:~:text=The%20butterfly%20%2D%20with%20its%20story,died%20in%20 Auschwitz%20in%201944.

Merotto, Tia. “Winged Messengers: How Monarch Butterflies Connect Culture and Conservation in Mexico.” Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, Smithsonian, 31 Oct. 2022, folklife.si.edu/magazine/monarch-butterflies-mexico-culture-conservation.

Butterflies | Mesoamerican Cultures and Their Histories. blogs.uoregon.edu/mesoinstitute/about/curriculum-unit- development/stem/ethnozoology/butterflies.

Belsky, Joseph, and Neelendra K. Joshi. “Assessing Role of Major Drivers in Recent Decline of Monarch Butterfly Population in North America.” Frontiers in Environmental Science, 2018. ProQuest, https://login.dist.lib.usu.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/scholarly- journals/assessing-role-major-drivers-recent-decline/docview/2284149494/se-2, doi:https://doi.org/10.3389/fenvs.2018.00086.

Monarch Butterfly, www.biologicaldiversity.org/species/invertebrates/monarch_butterfly/#:~:text=These%20iconic%20beauties%20have%20plummeted,us%20save%20monarch%20butterflies%20now. Accessed 4 Feb. 2024.

Krishna Ramanujan. “Armor on Butterfly Wings Protects against Heavy Rain.” Cornell Chronicle, 8 June 2020, news.cornell.edu/stories/2020/06/armor-butterfly-wings-protects-against-heavy-rain.

University, Drexel. Butterfly Life Cycle, 2018, ansp.org/exhibits/online-exhibits/butterflies/lifecycle/.