“Your mom is beautiful,” said the text from Genettia, the director at the nursing home where my mother had recently moved. Attached was a photo of my 94-year-old mother sitting in her wheelchair under a tree. On her hand sat an orange-and-black butterfly. Mom’s face shone with childlike wonder.

A New Life
Five weeks earlier, Mom had fallen in her assisted-living apartment and broken her pelvis. Before the doctor released her from the hospital, my husband, Kevin, and I discussed a permanent living arrangement. With an increase in falls over the past year, we agreed Mom needed to relocate to a facility that provided 24-hour care.

It was a heartbreaking decision to place my mother in a nursing home. Hundreds of my prayers over the last few years were pleas that Mom would never have to need this type of care. Although the rehabilitation and nursing centre was clean, bright and close to our home, I wrestled with feelings of guilt … until I received that photo.

Butterflies hold a special place in my heart. They symbolize rebirth. Hope. God’s love at work. I’d often used butterfly sightings as cues to pray for someone who needed a new job, a new home or a new life.

Looking back over the previous weeks, I thought of all the times a nurse or physical therapist had gone the extra mile to help Mom adjust to her new environment. On several occasions, I’d received a phone call from a nurse to inform me of a new medicine they’d started giving Mom, or to report on her progress. She was receiving superb care.

As I gazed at Mom’s happy face in the photograph, my anguish lessened. And then I noticed the shirt she wore.

The fabric was covered with butterflies. Thank You, Lord, for Mom’s new life.

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