Remembering Joseph with a Freshly Minted Monarch

My husband and I were hoping to get to swim at Black Moshannon, but the day never really warmed up enough for that. So we went hiking up on Rattlesnake Pike, above Black Moshannon, instead, and watched and waited on the sun.

We had also hoped for a hoagie, but the self-serve hoagie shop didn't have any when we went by. This meant our provisions for the day were a couple of snack bars, along with some cheese and tomatoes we'd brought for the hoagie, plus a pack of peanuts. Oh well.

We walked and enjoyed the cooler temperatures, and sat in our chairs and read our books. I also ended up at the very nice meadow on top where I ran into that bonzai butterfly party back in late July.

The pink thistle blooms are pretty much spent, but I found some butterflies anyway: some fritillaries, an American copper, a red-spotted purple, a couple of monarchs, a battered spicebush swallowtail. The field is full of tiny white asters and goldenrod now.

At the end of the afternoon, as we were packing up and getting ready to leave, we headed out the trail just a bit further, and I nearly stepped on something orange flitting around in the grass. We stepped away and discovered this gorgeous male monarch, freshly minted! It was doing some practice flutters, getting ready to fly.

It was one year ago on this day that our nephew Joseph took his own life, and his immediate family remembered him by releasing butterflies, with baby Rio Josette (Josette for Joseph) looking on. Painted ladies, by the looks of the pictures, which are joyous.

And so my husband and I joined in the big butterfly party. We remember Joseph with great love and many tears. We remember him with love and butterflies.

My soundtrack song is this one: Mary, by Natalie Maines and Patty Griffin.