Daughter's emotional tribute to father

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dead butterfly

Guardian

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My dad’s dying gift to me: a love of butterflies

Summary

Nutrition label

74% Informative

In the last six months of his life, I became obsessed with one of his chief passions: butterflies.

It was also an attempt to be his connection to the outside world, now that he was housebound.

All through that burning, terminal summer , I walked the woods and fields of Northamptonshire , self-consciously in his, following his tips.

The butterfly is one of our most resonant metaphors for transformation, the distinct stages of its lifecycle taught in songs and stories from childhood.

While I was out chasing butterflies, as if they might transform Dad’s condition or defer the inevitable, he was at home, in bed, shedding his recognisable forms.

I bathed him in his final weeks, emptied his urostomy bag down the toilet, cut his nails, wiped his nails and wiped his nose bleeds; and when I helped him down the stairs to the ambulance waiting outside, I was repaying him for a life of being carried myself.

VR Score

Informative language

Neutral language

Article tone

informal

Language

English

Language complexity

Offensive language

not offensive

Hate speech

not hateful