Butterflies

The butterfly flutters, the dog gives chase, and the girl laughs in delight.

It was our first serious conversation. After meeting this captivating young lady just two days earlier, she told me she wanted to talk. I leaned in.

“I want you to know that I have a dog. Her name is Taetumn, and she’s very important to me.”

Still lost in her green eyes, I told her that was great and that I loved dogs.

Dissatisfied, she squeezed my arm and stared into my eyes, speaking slowly.

“She’s very important to me.”

In that moment, I knew never to let things come between me and this girl’s best friend.

Tae was a large dog. Part German shepherd and part retriever, she had a peculiar way of being: intimidating and fierce when needed, and otherwise unnecessarily shy. Over the next few years, I would become totally smitten with both the young woman and her dog.

Every dog is special, but even among dogs, there is that one that is a rare find. Tae had been faithfully by this woman’s side during some of the toughest years of her life, and the dog would come to be by my side during some of the best years of mine.

This was why Tae’s unexpected loss was so hard. One day, we were all running on the trails, and three days later we were driving Tae to the vet to be put down after discovering cancer had overtaken her giant body. She was just six years old. The loss hurt badly then, and it still makes me sad today. Tae’s charming owner would later become my wife, but our baby girl would not be with us anymore. Her ashes now lie tucked under the fertile soil at the base of a magnolia tree planted in her honor in the pasture by the barn.

Spring is here, and the butterflies are emerging. Right now, the eastern tiger swallowtails are out, with their bright gold wingtips that fade into deep blue. They flutter about in the backyard, in the pasture, and in the orchard. It’s hard to be anywhere outside and not see one pass by.

The metamorphosis of the butterfly has always been an important symbol of change, but many hold the butterfly to be a go-between the living and the lost. While it has been eight years this month since we lost Tae, every time a butterfly passes by, my wife and I call out, “Hey Tae”. In spring, it’s a daily occurrence, an utterance that keeps the memory of something special alive.

We were so heartbroken with our loss of Tae that we moved quickly to rescue another dog. We knew our inclination to find a dog that looked like Tae was a flimsy attempt to make ourselves feel better, but we still adopted another shepherd-retriever mix that someone had returned three times.

This was the day we met Koda, keeper of the light. The dog was also quiet and fierce, every bit as strange as Tae. Koda loves to chase light, becoming completely enthralled by the flashes of phones or watches reflecting the sunlight onto the ground. But we discovered something else. He not only chases light. Koda chases shadows, butterfly shadows.

The warmth of spring is here, and the sun shines brilliantly as the swallowtails and monarchs bounce around on the wind. And when they come to visit, the bright sun casts their fluttering shadows across the grass, causing Koda to give playful chase.

He never tries to catch the butterflies. He’s fully content, and fully alive, chasing the shadows of the lost dog that visits us. And in these moments, a childish part of me wants to believe that Tae is here, visiting mom and dad, granting full approval and friendship with the dog that would come after, a dog that somehow helped heal our hearts.

And I am left with a paradox to unlock. The experience that losing something vital clears the way to love something vital without ever requiring us to stop loving either thing.