Butterfly symbols vary from place to place and from people to people, and the semantics and representation of the insect are associated with various forms of life, culture, religion and belief. The constant and intriguing presence of butterflies on the walls and windows of the hospitals studied has a significance for palliative care.

 

The metamorphosis of butterflies is symbolically associated with radical changes in human lives, with death perceived as a possibility for renewal. Therefore, the breaking of the cocoon is the death of the body, when the soul achieves freedom in the image of the butterfly.

​

At twenty-five, my mother was still a caterpillar, she had not transformed.  She had yet to go into her metamorphosis, her chrysalis never formed, her butterfly never emerged. I think of my twenty-five-year-old self, how young I was, how I thought I knew who I was, and now how much that has changed me.  What comes to mind is the stillness of my mother, as if she is petrified in amber like a fossil, an inactive form.  

​

​