At breakfast we asked my mom what she wanted to do on this beautiful day. She said she wanted to go to the park and see the Parkinson’s Butterfly. Last year, the daughter of a man with Parkinson’s disease created a butterfly piece of art that was auctioned off at the Rotary Club’s annual fundraiser. The local Parkinson’s Support Group won the bid and purchased the sculpture. Then they donated it to the city. This year in April – which is Parkinson’s awareness month – the butterfly was placed at a local park. We learned about it through the Parkinson’s Support Group and mom has been wanting to see it. My sister, brother, mom, and I traveled to the park that we had never been to and wasn’t even that far away. There was a large playground, field, picnic tables, and a pond that had a path around it. We followed the walkway until we came upon the butterfly. It was beautiful as we anticipated. There was a plaque that read “Living With the Parking Brake On”. The body of the butterfly resembled a brain stem. The wings were painted with yellow bursts that were connected and red tulips with green vines. The artist did her research and studied how neurons in the brain die when Parkinson’s infiltrates and then sketched her idea of interconnected yet disjointed nerves that became like greenery among the red tulips, the official emblem of hope for Parkinson’s patients. We got teary eyed as I read the information and showed my mom the different components of the butterfly. You can read the full, beautiful story here. To make the afternoon even more meaningful, as we continued on the path, we came across the Meditation Garden that was donated by the Hospice and Palliative Care organization. It was quite a blessing of an outing and mom was pretty exhausted when it came to bed time.

I Found God today in a more than meaningful outing.