When my uncle passed away, I felt like the world had gone still. The quiet after the funeral—the kind that sinks into your chest and stays there—was heavier than anything I’d ever known. I remember sitting in my backyard one afternoon, trying to pray but finding no words that felt right. The rosary beads tangled in my hands felt cold, unfamiliar, like my faith had somehow slipped through my fingers along with him.
And then I saw it—a butterfly. Soft orange wings flickering in the sunlight, hovering near the garden as if it had been waiting for me to notice. I watched it land on a flower, its wings opening and closing like a slow heartbeat. For the first time in weeks, I breathed without feeling that heartache.
After that, butterflies began appearing everywhere. In church, one brushed past the stained-glass window just as the priest said “eternal life.” Another danced around my car window on the way to the cemetery in Colombia. Each time, it felt less like coincidence and more like a quiet whisper from God—a reminder that death isn’t an ending, but a transformation.
In my Catholic faith, resurrection has always been central, but seeing it reflected in something as delicate as a butterfly made it real in a way no sermon ever could. The caterpillar’s transformation into a butterfly mirrors what I wanted to believe about my uncle’s soul—that he, too, was being lifted into something lighter, freer, eternal.
Now, whenever I see one, I pause. I think of him. I think of grace. And I think of how faith often arrives not in thunder or revelation, but in small, winged moments that remind us love doesn’t die—it changes form and continues to flutter quietly beside us.