I planted a butterfly bush for my mom who passed away a year after I purchased my home. Through the years, that single butterfly bush took center stage in a memorial garden of additional butterfly bushes, complete with other plants and decorated with memorials and memories of people I love.

My mom’s butterfly is a Canadian Tiger Swallowtail – it was the first butterfly to visit my yard after her butterfly bush bloomed that second full year. Oddly enough, my mom was French Canadian, and every year since, this butterfly will visit at least once - no matter what.

I planted another butterfly bush for my sister Nancy when she died. She wanted to be different. She picked a Monarch butterfly to visit me on her birthday. I will never forget watching her land perfectly on that butterfly bush I planted just for her – I found it hard to believe that she knew that was her plant.

Ten years have passed since then, and sadly I lost my other sister. Instead of planting a butterfly bush, I was able to get her rosebush from her original home, that she replanted in front of the apartment complex that she lived in before she died. When I called and asked the director for a simple clipping of her rose bush, the maintenance man dug up the entire bush. Her rose bush was so big that I had to put it in the front yard separate from the original memorial garden.

It was the summer after my sister Betty had died when I planted her rose bush, and as happy as I was to have it, I could not help but feel bad that I did not plant a butterfly bush just for her.

Nearing the end of August, I noticed a stray butterfly bush also in my front yard. I have never had a stray butterfly bush in my front yard, and I never had one that grew that fast without being noticed.

A few weeks later, that gorgeous stray of a plant produced a beautiful purple bloom. It was so big it reminded me of Charlie Brown’s Christmas Tree for that one bloom weighed down the branch of the bush very much like the red ornament did on the tree in the cartoon. Betty had a ceramic Charlie Brown Christmas Tree in her home, and she loved it – it belonged to my other sister.

Summer days and nights went by quickly that year, and suddenly that stray pop-up bush was the full size of a small butterfly bush – and it had many more blooms to prove it. If it were not for the green bush that surrounded it, all of those blooms and branches would have been lying on the ground by their sheer weight.

Seeing that plant grow as fast as it did made me think about how I had wished I had planted a butterfly bush just for her. And having it happen, the way it did, it reminded me that nature is so remarkably in tune with the energy of people and their intentions that when you wish something hard enough and with all of your heart, true intentions will find a way to come to pass. When we allow nature and the universe to do what it does, nature and the universe can and will surprise you.

My sister Betty loved her yard and gardening. And because I believe she and I were so in line with nature and with each other that the universe knew how much I loved my sister and how much she loved me. And even though she and I are no longer within reach of a human touch, we are still very close and only one small spirit world away. And that butterfly bush was letting us know that.

When I am in my butterfly garden, or thinking about days past, I always love to think that perhaps the spirit world and others can mingle and be together more often, maybe by accident or perhaps by a moment of chance. And when we notice and acknowledge that these two worlds can do this - it helps us to see more of their world and less of the so-called real one.

I try very hard to never underestimate a perfect sign from the spiritual world, for I still have days I feel their world is further away. However, just when I begin to doubt, I have lost contact with their world, I will notice a small sign or simply take a breath, deeper than the last one, and the wings of a butterfly will catch my attention.

One night for no particular reason, I pulled the curtains open on my porch door at midnight, and there was a cardinal sitting there looking like it belonged on my porch in the dark. After a few more visits from cardinals chirping to be noticed, I started to feel and believe that this sign was from my Godmother.

I did the same with my front door late one night. It was the night before my sister died, and I felt like I needed to open the door - so I did. And stuck to the outside door was a tree toad that remained there for a very long time. Did this happen by chance - perhaps? But I would say I felt and knew enough to open the door. I believe Nancy was drifting in and out of consciousness that night, and this was a sign from her saying goodbye. She loved frogs and collected them in many different forms for a good part of her life. I purchased a lot of them for her.

It is not uncommon for me to watch a dragonfly take flight over my head and watch its behavior. Once, I put my hand out hoping a dragonfly would land on me, and it did. I even have a picture of it.

Even more unbelievable was when I was going to visit my sister Betty in the hospital a few days before she died, and I was driving fast because I was worried something would happen before I got there, I yelled out in my car – “Betty,” I said, Wake Up!” My nephew, who was sitting with her at the time, told me when I got to her bedside that she woke up out of her deep sleep before I got there and asked him, “Where is Karen?”

I also love to hear stories of people finding pennies on the ground right in front of their big toes - after someone they loved passed away. Is this by accident, chance, or did someone find and drop a penny from heaven to say - I miss you too?

My sister Nancy loves to drop feathers around me and others she loves. Feathers that appear out of nowhere right next to my car sometimes - no matter where I park. And she loves to turn a light on in my house in my healing room – the light belonged to her. I took it from her house just because no one else wanted it.

Dreams of phone messages – I have heard many stories about messages and phone calls appearing on people’s phones from loved ones who are no longer here. And one of my stories woke me up in the middle of the night because I thought my sister Betty was calling me, and I grabbed the phone and checked it.

Which brings me to the ending of this story. People we love can and do die before us, and sometimes suddenly. And many times, because we are not ready to say goodbye or let go of their human existence, we experience sorrow that leaves us feeling helpless and sad. However, when they leave us in body and in voice, I believe that their souls still remain very near to our hearts. And believing can make us feel more powerful than we did if they were standing right next to us.

When I was thinking about planting a butterfly bush for Betty and I remembered her rose bush, I wanted to get it immediately. I was frantic before and after I made the phone call to secure this transaction because my heart was always broken. I was also willing to take just a clipping and wait for years to allow it to grow. But when the maintenance man dug up the entire bush, and I was supposed to go get it and I suddenly realized it would be a challenge to transport. But it did not matter – I wanted something she loved next to me.

As luck would have it, a friend of mine was traveling right by that apartment complex that same week, and when she offered to help me pick it up, I was so happy it worked out in my favor. I knew that her entire rose bush would never have fit in my car. And the day she was going to get it, I received a phone call from the director telling me that it may not fit in my car, and I may want to bring a tarp to transport it.

Lucky for me, my friend already enroute in her small truck, was carrying a tarp for stray plants. Her rose bush fit perfectly in her hatchback, lying down. And when she and that plant arrived at my house safely, it was as if that plant was right where it was supposed to be. And while it was a bit of a challenge to replant a rose bush with thorns (not my favorite type of plant) it looks like it belonged - front and center stage, in my front yard with my butterfly garden directly to the right.

Today, that rose bush is thriving. It is in its second year, and if you look to the right of her plant, it will be looking at the newest addition. The stray purple butterfly bush that planted itself. Or did someone help?

A Butterfly Bush For Betty

Miss You Too!