In August There are Butterflies

It started about five years ago - our capture and care of caterpillars.  Not too far from our house are marshes where milkweed grows wild; at the right time in any given year you can find scads of monarch caterpillars hiding on, under or between its leaves.  My husband decided to mount an expedition with a few of the neigborhood kids to find and bring home some of the ugly things so we could all watch the metamorphosis from caterpillar to butterfly.  It was an unqualified success.  Each of the kids found one, put it in a jar with some leaves, and waited.  Within a week, most of them were in a chrysalis.  A couple of weeks later, the excitement was mounting as each chrysalis became more and more transparent.  The kids would rush home from school every day to check the jars and see if the butterflies were out.  And finally, one day, they were.  Sitting there on the dried-up leaves, fanning those spectacular wings, just waiting to fly.  We let them go in our yard, and I watched my children follow them from one plant to another until they did what butterflies always do - they flew high and far and away.  

The jars of butterflies have become an annual occurrence. Late in August, the hunt is on for the healthiest-looking caterpillars my two youngest can find (we have been known to lose one or two before the chrysalis; it's fairly tragic), and then we watch the miracle again.  It all happens during the last gasp of the summer heat when the tomatoes are turning red in the garden and kids on bikes are riding home from school, their backpacks still stiff with newness.  I am pretty fond of this time of year - kids in classrooms, warm afternoons and cool evenings, fruit stands - because of its dependable sameness.  I like the fact that after all the madness of summer, school shopping, and registrations, they go back to school, just like they always have, a year further ahead than they were in the spring.  I like having a purpose beyond my "Mom" status - I feel like I've accomplished something worthwhile as I sit reading on my patio after a day in the library trying to convince at least one child that books are amazing.  I like the pie I can make out of the fresh peaches that grow on my trees because it reminds me of a very nice lady I knew during my own childhood in a place I still miss.  It's an in-between place, this time, and even though I'm not wild about change, I've come to appreciate it. 

But it's the last time I will experience it quite like this.  I've hit an in-between place of my own, and I'm not quite sure how I got here so soon.  For the last 14 years, we have done this in August.  New clothes, new friends, new schools, new adventures.  We started with one child, and now there are four, but my family has always been whole, my kids have always been home, and we have always been, unquestionably, a team.  Through soccer games and dance lessons and parent-teacher conferences and after-school jobs, we have made it happen.  And now I am here, staring over the precipice of my oldest's senior year, wondering how much it will hurt when I have to jump.  The one thing I am absolutely sure of is that when I do, nothing will ever be the same again. 

I should have seen this day coming, but, strangely, I feel surprised.  After all, this is what I wanted during those long years I was home all day, every day, being a mom, but aching for some real adult conversation and a shower.  It has been THE PLAN. High school, college, productive member of society - boom, done.  I've known from the very beginning that our goal was to raise them well enough that they could live without us; so why do I feel like I've been ambushed by a deadline I've felt creeping up on me for years?  In truth, my daughter is already half gone.  Her schedule is full and has already taken her away from home between the hours of 7 a.m. and 9 p.m. most days.  She drives herself where she needs to go, finds her own meals, and chooses her own people.  My voice has become an echo, quieter than it has ever been, playing in the background of her own coming of age.  And still I'm not ready.  

I have one more year to get there, I know.  In that year, I'll be able to go to sleep at night with every one of my kids in the places they have always been.  I will attend band concerts and muddle through financial aid applications, cheering all four of them on as they stretch even further away from me.  I will fix dinner for six every night, even though only four of us are eating because the other two might want it later.  And I will grieve.  Because at the close of that year, this time of babies in cribs and homework at kitchen tables and band-aids for scraped knees will begin to end, and I will have to let it go.  I know that this first leaving is only the start; she will be followed so closely by her sister that it steals my breath away.  And then again.  And again.  Butterflies with spectacular wings flying high and far and away.  

Funny thing, though.  August always comes back.  We've already talked about how to grow bigger peaches next year, and we have several seasons of caterpillars ahead of us.  Maybe one day the butterfly jars will completely disappear, but I have every confidence something else will take their place. I have loved this part of my life; I've tried to live it so I can look back without regret, knowing I did my best by my family.  For the most part, I've succeeded.  But teetering on the edge of a turning page is scary.  And exciting.  And sad.  And confusing.  And exhilarating.  And I will miss who I was when all my children were here.  But I couldn't be more proud of who they are.  I'm grateful to know, though, that there is more story on the other side.  It will be a whole new adventure...again.  More pie for me.

MERLENE'S PEACH PIE

3 1/2 cups water

2 cups sugar

3/4 cup corn starch

1/8 tsp. salt 

1 package (3 oz.) orange jello

1/4 cup lemon juice

6-8 cups peaches, peeled and cut into chunks 

2 prepared pie shells

Bake pie shells and prepare peaches; set aside.  Boil 2 cups water in large saucepan.  In a separate bowl, mix 1 1/2 cups cold water, sugar, corn starch, and salt.  Pour into boiling water, and return to boil, stirring constantly for 3 minutes.  Add jello, and boil 1 more minute.  Remove from heat.  Add lemon juice and cool slightly.  Mix with peaches and pour into pie shells.  Chill 3-4 hours before serving with whipped cream.