"I dreamed I was a butterfly, flitting around in the sky; then I awoke. Now I wonder: Am I a man who dreamt of being a butterfly, or am I a butterfly dreaming that I am a man?" - "The Zhuangzi" by Zhuang Zhou
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| Butterfly at Jacksonville National Cemetery, March 2017 |
Paster Ida Iverson, who spoke the eulogy at my brother's funeral service would describe these butterflies that appeared soon after Arthur's death as "a God Thing when a connection like that happens and it will stand as a double meaning for your family."
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| Butterfly at Jacksonville National Cemetery, March 2017 |
When my sister and brother were deciding on the final resting place of Arthur, they found they could not bury our brother at his preferred military cemetery in St. Petersburg, Florida as there was no space available for in-ground burials. They chose Jacksonville National Cemetery as the next best choice. My sister verbalized a prayerful wish that our brother would not be sad with our arrangements: "If it is okay Arthur, send us a sign - like a butterfly." Later, when they visited the Jacksonville cemetery, upon returning to their vehicle, there was a beautiful Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly, landing and circling about the vehicle. My sister snapped these two photographs of it.
After the funeral, I was purchasing postage for an oversized birthday card at a local north Florida post office and requested an attractive appropriate stamp from the clerk. I was awestruck when her very first offering was a sheet of beautiful Eastern Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly stamps.
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Eastern Tiger Swallowtail Postage Stamp
Once returning home to Virginia I decided to search for a personalized license plate to memorialize my brother, when I discovered that the State Insect of Virginia, our mother's home state, -- is the very same Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly that had appeared at the cemetery! I immediately ordered one for my vehicle in honor of the memory of my brother Arthur.
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Remember - whenever you see a butterfly flitting to and fro,
It is a loved one come from Heaven, just to say "Hello."
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