A Miracle
My mother died in November of 2000, leaving me totally devastated. Last summer, I was in my back yard with my 3-year-old granddaughter, and we saw a butterfly fluttering all around my butterfly bushes. It was yellow and black and very pretty. I love butterflies, so I went in the house and got my camera and took quite a few pictures of the butterfly. I was so thrilled to be able to get so close to it, it wasn't afraid of me at all, so I was able to get some really good close-up shots of it.
After my mother died, I took some of her things that I knew that she would want me to have since I am her only daughter, so I have a picture that was hers that is a lithograph of a butterfly and daisies. One day, I was walking down our stairs and I looked at the picture that was hers, I have it hanging on the stairway wall, and it suddenly struck me how much the butterfly looked like the one that I had seen in our back yard and I was thrilled because I just knew that she had sent that butterfly to me as a sign of her love for me. I felt so much joy and peace and so loved by her. She was so important to me and I loved her so much and I miss her so much every day. I try to live my life in a way that would be pleasing to her. I just know that she was with me and my granddaughter, whom she loved very much too, that day in my back yard.
Mary Louise Hooker Seigler and Allie Wiechman
By Charlotte Anne Seigler Miller
January 16, 2004