A Butterfly in the Hand

Last weekend we had dinner at a friend’s house. We arrived there in the early afternoon before the sun set, enjoying the “Bermudiful” day. While my friend and I were chopping veggies and partaking in other activities related to rustling up our dinner, her husband came into the kitchen with a treasure in his hand.

Sitting on his palm was a beautiful butterfly…well I guess it was really a moth, but it was beautiful nonetheless. The poor thing just sat there, barely moving. “I think it is at its end,” my friend’s husband said. We all gazed at this artistic creation of nature. I ran and got my camera and immediately began to visually document the experience, but I needn’t have hurried, because the fragile creature was not going anywhere.

We went outside to take advantage of the better light offered by the sun; all the while the moth didn’t move from its spot in the middle of our friend’s hand. As the sun’s rays warmed the moth, it began to flap its wings. It crawled to perch on his fingers, tentatively fluttering, and suddenly it was off.

Was the miracle that it was able to fly away despite its weakened state? Was the miracle that it rested on my friend’s hand so quietly for such a long time? Or was the miracle that, for a few minutes, we stopped everything to appreciate one of nature’s beautiful creations?