'Healing' butterfly release offers comfort to families

COEUR d’ALENE — It was a time for sorrow, then release.  

Those in the community dealing with loss were invited to share in a ceremony Tuesday evening culminating in a butterfly release at the Share Hope Memorial Garden.  

The community memorial butterfly release has been going on for several years through a partnership with Auburn Crest Hospice, Northwest Infant Survival and SIDS Alliance and the University of Idaho College of Agricultural and Life Sciences.  

Darina Reyes brought her sons, Asaiah and Azariah to remember her husband and their father, Alex Reyes. 

“We’re absolutely trusting God through his passing,” Reyes said. “We are thankful for the years we had with him.” 

As her sons found painted lady butterflies released by students from the University of Idaho Entomology program, smiles found their way back to their faces as they experienced the beautiful insects showing their wings before eventually flying away. 

“Being here is very healing for us. You don't realize sometimes that others are hurting too,” Reyes said. 

Through writing notes to deceased loved ones on dissolvable paper and then placing them in a flower-strewn basin, Sara Jane Ruggles of Auburn Crest Hospice had designed a way for people to send a message to those they miss the most. 

“We all come together today in a sense of grief. That’s what binds us as humans and brings us together,” Ruggles said.   

Ruggles kept having butterflies pop into her head whenever she thought of her son, who would have been 12 years old this year. She found out his heart was no longer beating during a routine pregnancy checkup. 

She was comforted by a yellow butterfly in the Share Hope Memorial Garden and felt closer and connected to her son. 

Researching the symbolism of butterflies, she discovered multiple cultures celebrate the delicate insects as a way to transition between this world and the next. 

“You grieve the soul that’s gone but you also grieve the person they could have been, the dream of who he would have been,” Ruggles said. 

Rev. Terance Hall said the beauty of nature and animals help share that message of loved ones who are no longer with us. 

The beauty and agility of these flying masterpieces represent change and transformation.   

They represent peace and comfort to hearts,” Hall said. “It’s truly an amazement of god’s creativity.”   

    Bailey Turningrobe smiles at a butterfly that landed on her during the community memorial butterfly release Tuesday in the Share Hope Garden in Coeur d'Alene.
  

    Darina Reyes looks at the tiny butterfly her son, Asaiah Reyes had land on him after a memorial butterfly release Tuesday in the Share Hope Memorial Garden in Coeur d'Alene.
  

    Azariah Reyes laughs as he has two butterflies land on him Tuesday at the Share Hope Memorial Gardens.
  

    A butterfly lands on a sculpture at the Share Hope Memorial Garden during a ceremony for grieving families to let go of some of their loss with a butterfly release.
  

    Event organizers Sara Jane Ruggles and Liz Montgomery exclaim as newly released butterflies land on them at a memorial release ceremony Tuesday.
  

    Brett Bohnert coaxes butterflies out of the netting they were carried in for a memorial release ceremony.