Butterfly

At the age of 37, I’ve lived enough years to know the value of changing my perspective. Said simply, I’ve learned the value of being wrong.

At a younger point in my life, I saw things through the lens of black and white; right and wrong. What I failed to add to my thought process, was the element of time.

There was a time in my life where I’d go to the store and see lawn decorations; you know, the colorful little ornaments that people stick in the ground which blow in the wind. Those. To some degree, I felt like they were clutter – and I made a judgement call against the type of people that would dare to fill their yards with such an eyesore.

Not everything is black and white.

Last week, I was shopping at the ‘man store’ – also known as Lowes – with Atlas. We were on a hunt to find hanging plants for the patio, and he was riding in the shopping cart.

“Dad, a butterfly!” Atlas happily exclaimed.

He pointed down at a large display of lawn ornaments. The same sorts of ornaments I despised in my 20’s.

In some ways, I felt like a part of me was throwing up; regurgitating a prior moment of judgement. My instinctive response was nearly to say “Not for our yard, Atlas…”

And then, something stopped me…one simple phrase I taught Atlas.

“What’s important to you is important to Dad.”

I looked at his eyes, full of excitement, and asked him:

“Atlas, would you like to get a butterfly for our garden?”

He happily nodded and pointed to the butterfly, which flew all the way back to our patio that afternoon.

This morning, I sat down to enjoy a cup of coffee on the patio. Sitting here, I listened to the sound of birds as they filled the morning air with their song. It was (and is) absolutely beautiful.

When I sat down, my first thought was:

“How wonderful it would be to share this moment with my family.”

Those thoughts are one of the perpetual stings you experience as a single parent.

I looked over at the patio, and saw the butterfly, and was thankful for the little token of joy that it brought me; a reminder of time shared between Dad and Son, and a promise that it won’t be long until we play again.