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Butterfly healing
About 350 turn out to remember lost family members
Paige Williams screamed for a second when a butterfly decided to cling onto her blouse.
The 5-year-old's mother Vanessa Williams just smiled, watching Paige as she stood nervously until it flew off, joining about 400 other butterflies in the small garden near the Globe Theater on Saturday afternoon.
"I was just letting her know that was her grandpa saying goodbye to her," Vanessa said.
"I thought that was poppa Hammond. I thought he was a bee," Paige said.
About 350 people released the monarch butterflies and balloons into the air that afternoon as a way to say farewell to their departed relatives. It was one of two butterfly releases organized by the Home Hospice this weekend, with one in Andrews set for Sunday.
Home Hospice spokeswoman Karen Carter said it was a way for families there to remember relatives that died and thank them for brightening their lives.
"It gives people the opportunity to stop for just a second ... and witness how beautiful life is," she said. "When you release the butterfly there's just a real spiritual connection."
That's how Tina Colson felt when she came to the butterfly release. Soon after her son Noah Burrows was killed in a car accident back in 1997 in Austin, she recalled sitting at home with her best friend, also from Austin.
"The whole time, while we were there this butterfly kept trying to get our attention," she said. "My friend said it's Noah."
Stevie Green, Vanessa Wililam's niece, didn't see a connection between the butterflies and her late grandfather like Vanessa and Paige had, but though it probably meant a lot to most of the people there.
"It's probably helping most people," Green said.
Carter said elementary schools from all over the Permian Basin raised the 400 butterflies that were released Saturday, mostly as their Earth Day projects.
The people that arrived also listened to a short musical performance inside the theater. Before they went out to release their butterflies, the names of all the relatives being honored were read, each to the ring of a triangle.
