From my stories to my grandchildren...
My Dearest Grandchildren,
While writing my stories, I sometimes stumble upon details that give them character, feeling and focus. They blanket me with warm intimacy; an inner respite from what ails me. My heart slows, my blood pressure drops, I feel…peace – just like when I hold one of you in my lap, bundled in your blankie, warm, watching Elmo (“Melmo”), sipping milk from a sipper-seal – the same one your parents used over 30 years ago. Simple, with a purity as clean as the Milky Way on a cool mountain night, stretching across a moonless, inky-black sky; a drop of rain resting on a leaf before it starts its timeless voyage to the sea; an innocent hand reaching up to mine as it starts its journey to wherever journeys take us – simple breaths that give life depth. I’m fortunate, for there are so many simple breaths – strokes of the brush – that have painted my life.
As a child in Kentucky, bounties of butterflies filled empty spaces of sky in woods, fields and pastures, along creeks and ponds – a bushel-basket of multi-colored wonder cast to the heavens. Even as a wild-eyed boy absorbed with the wealth of free-roaming adventures and wonders available to Appalachian children of my time, I often stopped to ponder – how can a bug be so pretty? I didn’t say it aloud, concerned my pecking order amongst my cohorts might become compromised. Boys did not see “pretty” things. Back then, “pretty” was for girls.
May There Be Monarchs in Your Life
But now, as an older man with all the family and love I could hope for, having already established my pecking order in the scheme of life, it is important to look back on the simple and, yes, “pretty” things. To remember them…for you, my grandchildren.
The Monarch Butterfly was one of those: a fluttering bounty of orange, black and white; as soft as ducks’ down, as calming as a soft breeze across a little boy’s sweaty body, as refreshing as a sip of creek water. The Monarch Butterfly was a boyhood friend that went about its business, fluttering, seemingly without purpose or direction, no decisions to be made – free. I was fearful of most insects, but I easily put my finger out when a Monarch fluttered by, wishing it to land and visit. The slow, open-close, open-close of its wings on my fingertip, mesmerized me, planting a softness in my heart that I carry with me today.
The Monarch Butterfly was one of the many simple, but integral pieces of the painting of my childhood that, if removed, would render the painting incomplete – without depth. I had a beautiful childhood, thanks in great part to the wonders that surrounded me; crawling, swimming, climbing, flying, singing, chirping, croaking and fluttering across the canvas of my life. A cornucopia of simple beauty, of art, that I look back on with such pleasure that I hope, with all my heart and being, it will continue for my grandchildren’s memories. Inhale deeply, my granchildren, of the modest gifts of nature – they give life depth.
Love,
Baba
Per biologicaldiversity.org: “In the late 1990s the clustered butterflies covered 45 acres of fir trees in their overwintering forests in Mexico, but over the past two decades monarchs have declined by 90% and in 2021 there were only 5 acres of eastern butterflies.
“The monarch population west of the Rocky Mountains, which overwinters in California, is in even greater peril having declined by 95% over two decades. Numbering some 1.2 million in the 1990s — and having a brush with complete collapse in 2020 — in 2022 the butterflies rebounded to 247,000, eliciting a collective sigh of relief from butterfly enthusiasts.
“Across their range, monarchs are threatened by pesticides, climate change, ongoing suburban sprawl, and fragmented and poisoned habitats as they navigate their way across the continent. They need a helping hand from the government, businesses and concerned individuals.
“Monarchs' decline is a harbinger of widespread environmental change. The plummeting population of these familiar butterflies, along with the decline of many other butterflies and bees, threatens the wellbeing of people too, since the food security of humans is dependent on the ecological services that pollinators provide. Monarch butterflies and their epic migration could disappear unless people take rapid action to protect them.”
What can we do: There are, in fact, several things we as individuals can do to help the Monarch Butterfly. Here is a very good article by the Conservation Foundation that can get you started. But regardless of where I look on the internet for “what can I do to help the Monarch Butterfly,” the first answer is almost always plant milkweed. In this article, it states that, “Before they are butterflies, monarchs are hungry, hungry caterpillars. But, unlike the Hungry Hungry Caterpillar who eats everything from apples and pears to chocolate cake and salami, monarch caterpillars only eat milkweed leaves. This is why it is crucial to plant milkweed in our gardens and parks if we want to save monarchs.”
Monarch Migration Map
(from MONARCHWATCH.ORG)
You can get free milkweed seeds from Live Monarch. You can also buy seeds and share in multiple ways. That is what I am going to do: remove much of my lawn and put in a pollinator garden that supports butterflies. I don’t know what I am doing, but using this Live Monarch page to order milkweed and other plants, and using their good instructions, I think I will be able to figure it out.
More Resources