Butterflies fly away {and the art of letting go}

Greetings, sweet friends.

♥

My regular readers already know about my butterfly project. Actually, it's not MY butterfly project, but rather a little off-shoot of a much bigger plan that you can read about here.

While I didn't meet my goal of collecting 51 handmade butterflies before my 51st birthday {I received 23}, I can't begin to express how touched I was by all the butterflies I received, and how much I appreciate those who participated and sent butterflies to me. Each butterfly was a beautiful work of art, and I was surprised {and admittedly a little disappointed in myself} that when the time came to bundle them up and ship them to the museum I really didn't want to let them go! I felt a little selfish wanting to keep them, but I knew from the beginning that I these were meant for the museum project to remember the innocent children who perished in the Holocaust. One and a half million children. So I set them free and sent them to the museum this week.




I had them all packaged up and ready to go to the post office on my lunch hour on Tuesday when I received an email from Cheri telling me that the one she had stitched "51" on was for me to keep. I was back and forth on whether to unwrap the box. I wanted to keep it! Wanted to hold on to it as MINE but in the end I left the box taped up and let that beautiful butterfly go to the museum with the others. {Big of me, no?}

Now, as I sit here this morning typing this blog post, I look over and see the tip of a beautiful pink butterfly {made by Annie} that has been buried in a stack of birthday cards and didn't make its way into the photo above or the box that's already been sent. {I'm so sorry, Annie! And now I wonder if there are others that are missing...} I will mail Annie's butterfly today and will feel a little pang of "Oooohhhh...I want to keep this for my own forever!!!" all over again.

And isn't that the way it goes with us humans? We hold on to things that are dear to us. Sentimental fools are we, to think that a little token completes us when really, that token was never meant to be ours forever. What will be mine forever is the sweet memory of each of these butterflies, made in honor of my birthday and my 2012 One Little Word, but most importantly to honor all those children who perished during the Holocaust who never got to celebrate turning 51.

I am blessed beyond measure.

♥

Edit: I just realized I didn't include Stephanie and her daughter's either! Oh what a hot mess I am!!! Sorry, Steph! Anyone else I'm missing? Please let me know. I know that Steph's are in the front of the cool book she sent me.

Also, I want to make note that Jacky's women's group made 20, and my non-blog-friend Denise and her family have made several. That, my friends, puts me OVER the 51 goal. Hooray for me! Hooray for all of us!