Jenny is an award-winning TV-watcher, peanut-butter-from-the-jar eater
and chore-avoider who usually can be found blogging at Absolutely Bananas and Seattle Mom
Blogs. Ok, ok, so she actually didn’t win awards for any of those things. But she should have. She definitely should have.
We’re sitting in our front yard enjoying the cool shade and even cooler beverages when CJ (our five year old) announces, “I have something to show you!” He races around the house and comes back with his hands cupped around his latest treasure.
“Mommy, daddy, look! I have a pet moth!”
CJ opens his hand to reveal a rather large brown moth. Upon seeing freedom, the moth scurries to CJ’s fingertips … leaps… and plummets to the ground in a flurry of flapping, where it proceeds to hop about.
Jay reaches down and picks the moth up. “What’s WRONG with this guy?” He holds it close to his eyeballs and peers closely. “It’s like… deformed.”
He holds the deformed moth out for me to examine. To be honest I’m mostly uninterested in the plight of this latest insect… my sangria is doing a good job of holding my attention. But I give the moth in Jay’s hand a cursory glance, just to be polite. “Mm hmm”
“No seriously look!” Jay insists, “His wings look like they never developed. They’re puny.”
I look closer and, sure enough. The moth looks strange and ungainly, with a stout body and teeny tiny little wings.
As I’m watching, the moth crawls to the edge of Jay’s hand and leaps off, his tiny wings frantically beating.
Flllllppppat!
He hits the ground upside down with his little legs kicking and waving and the tiny wings meagerly flapping. Despite all the frenetic activity, he’s helpless to turn himself over.
Jay reaches down and offers a finger. “Here you go, little guy.” The moth clutches the finger and Jay lifts him up.
“Not again!”
The moth is desperate to fly… refusing to believe that his wings won’t carry him to lofty heights of freedom. And so he leaps again, and again he falls like a rock, finding himself looking up at the sky from upside down.
“This is awful.” Jay looks pained as he helps his little friend to his feet. “He instinctively wants to try to fly, so he keeps leaping. But those wings are never going to hold him. He’s going to kill himself!”
Tenderly he holds the moth, which desperately throws itself at the air.
It really is one of the more depressing displays of hopeless hopefulness that I’ve ever seen.
The little guy BELIEVES he can fly.
But he SO can’t.
Nature can be brutal.
And it just goes to show, no matter what they say, you need wings to fly. Big wings.
Jay carefully carries the tormented insect inside to live out its days in our butterfly habitat. Where, Jay is convinced, he’ll be MUCH happier.
He does seem happier in there. At least there’s not so much self-mutilation, so we assume he’s happier.
And I’m just happy to have a man who really CARES about a deformed little moth. That’s a good man, I’m sure of it.
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
You did get a real winner Jenny! And you can be assured that CJ is watching and learning and cataloging all of this for the years to come. What a wonderful example of compassion.
LOVE it! You sure did pick a winner! What a fine example for your son.
That might be one of the sweetest stories that I’ve heard in a very long time.
We recently did butterflies with our pre-k class and we had a few that suffered a similar plight. My co-teacher was just distraught for the poor little things. We tried to help themm, but they didn’t survive for very long.
That moth is so lucky (or unlucky) that you actually have a butterfly habitat!
This is a beautiful story. Made me smile.
We just had butterflies (a gift from a friend) and one of our guys had the same thing!
I was totally distraught, too.
It is terribly sad, and I am glad that Jay was so compassionate toward the moth CJ found!
I’m having one of those days where I sympathize with the moth. Any room in that butterfly habitat for an overworked mother of five?
I’m having one of those days where I sympathize with the moth. Any room in that butterfly habitat for an overworked mother of five?
I’m having one of those days where I sympathize with the moth. Any room in that butterfly habitat for an overworked mother of five?