I dropped her off at preschool. A big moment for her. A big moment for me, too. A symbol of change and growth and the passing of time.  Before going through the door, Ruby stopped and peeked over her shoulder at me, barely able to see over the top of her backpack covered in planets and stars. I waved at her and she waved back at me – unsure of herself. Her teacher gave me a reassuring smile as she guided her away. And then she was inside the building and I was left in the parking lot holding the baby on my hip, who stared at me inquisitively. Maybe she could sense my apprehension. My excitement and fear matching that of my four-year-old who was no longer in my sight.

On the ride home I cried listening to “Slipping Through My Fingers” by ABBA as the baby babbled in her car seat. I was in disbelief, I think. Unable to grasp that I was letting my big girl off on her first grand adventure without me. I was longing for a rewind button or possibly just a pause. When I got home, I went to dump my old coffee into the sink and stared through blurry eyes at the glass Mason jar on our windowsill filled with sticks and wizened milkweed leaves.

Almost two weeks prior my four daughters and I had gone for a walk on the road and passed a field of milkweed. There, on the first plant we came across, was a distinctive yellow, white and black striped monarch caterpillar. Ruby asked to hold it in her hands, and I delighted in watching her use her still-dimpled fingers to stroke it gently, talking sweetly to it with her squeaky voice. We brought it home with us and made a Mason jar habitat where it could eat milkweed and go through its metamorphosis. Our family watched in awe as our new caterpillar friend quickly became a green and gold chrysalis – dangling from the lid covered in air holes. As the days passed, however, I began to worry that something was wrong. Maybe it wasn’t developing the way it was supposed to. All of the articles online said that the butterfly should emerge within eight to twelve days, but now we were on day thirteen and instead of looking transparent as it should, the chrysalis appeared to have turned a dark black. Ruby looked into the jar with disappointment as she got ready for her first day of preschool that morning.  

“Mumma – what is taking so long in there?” she asked with a scowl.

I smoothed back the hair that had already wriggled free from her braid and studied the toothpaste smeared on her cheek. Our Ruby was much too wild to stay put together for long, even on this monumental day.

“You know the amazing thing about butterflies?” I answered as I scrubbed at her cheek with my thumb, “They are the only ones who know when they’re ready to come out and spread their wings. You and I don’t get to have any say in the matter. We just get to experience the joy of sitting back and watching the show.”

Now that I was back at my house after dropping Ruby off, the baby happily eating her sister’s leftover peanut butter toast in the highchair, I continued staring into the glass jar on the windowsill as my cold coffee made its descent down the drain in our kitchen sink. As I searched for the chrysalis amongst the leaves and sticks, I gasped as I was met with a majestic monarch butterfly staring back at me, opening and closing its delicate wings.  

Caught so off-guard by our new houseguest, I began to weep again, without really knowing why I was so overcome with emotion. The kids had missed it! I had missed it. How did it happen so quickly?  I had only been gone for a short time. Our whole family had been waiting and waiting, checking the jar constantly and wondering if and when the day would be that it would emerge. And, quietly, without an audience, the monarch had burst free from its home and tested the feeling of being the same – yet completely different than it had been before. I had to accept that butterflies are destined to grow and change. Without anybody’s permission and on their own timeline, they do it anyway. That’s the amazing thing about butterflies and children, I guess. They are the only ones who know when they’re ready to come out and spread their wings. If we’re lucky, we just get to sit back with misty eyes and watch the show.