The Butterfly by the Door

Last night, Raghav and I were going down to see my friend for a little while, as she was going in for a surgery today. Just as we walked out through our door, we saw a little black and yellow butterfly in the passage outside. The bright colours caught our eyes. We stopped and stooped down to take a closer look. Raghav noticed that she had probably hurt her wing and could not fly. But she was trying to move. We wondered together how she could have got there on the twelfth floor. Raghav was worried if she was going to die as she could not fly to get her food. "She is so beautiful!", he whispered softly, looking at her with loving eyes. We held her in our thoughts as we moved on.

When we got back about ten or fifteen minutes later, we looked for the butterfly. She was no longer in the same place. She had moved. We found her lying still, quite close to the doormat of our house. She was dead. We stooped down again to see her closely. "I think she moved on her own, with that hurt wing. I think she probably knew that we cared, and that's why she moved close to our house," he said, as we walked in through the door. He was probably right.

We didn't think of burying her or saying a prayer. We simply held her with love in our hearts, acknowledging her quiet presence in our house that moment. This morning, when I opened the front door, her frail form was still lying there outside the door. She was gone and was yet there in a way.

Death brings one closer to love and the fragility of all that is, however big or small.