August 23, 2021

My dearest,

You asked me this morning, Where do butterflies sleep?

Where do they sleep? I tell you to do some research on your phone and you do. You tell me they rest on the underside of leaves of plants they like. You tell me they sleep in crevices of rocks, even.

And you don’t stop there. You discover the lifespan of butterflies runs in days and weeks, not months and years (other than a few rare ones).

The lime butterflies in our garden? The adult Papilio demoleus lives but 4 to 6 days, but twice, thrice as long in its larval stage.

So you tell me the Krist, Singto and Ohm we would see in our garden couldn’t have been the same trio we would have seen the week prior.

True, I saw, but these are the next generation. Just as Sherlock Holmes, Tarzan and Batman get played by different actors from decade to decade, our boys are the same even when they aren’t.

They are our Krist, Singto and Ohm. The butterflies in our garden. They flit this way and that; they rest in the birds of paradise grove; they await your return home, as do I.

Yours, ever and always.