butterfly jar. (Ellie's reflection story)

I can't believe I forgot to put this on the blog.  This was Ellie's reflection story,  I felt like it was a beautiful story.  She was told by the judges that it would have won if it weren't for all the grammatical errors.  This silly girl didn't take the time to have someone go through it.  But here it is in all its entirety.  Beware it may make you cry.

   Butterfly Jar

            Ella’s silvery blue eyes stared up at me as if everything was perfect in the world, I guess at that moment it was.  A pale, slender arm reached over and gently eased a milkweed leaf from the ground.  Those silvery eyes stared calmly at the small yellow monarch caterpillar.

               “Grace does this one look like a Percy to you.” Ella asked with her little girl voice. 

               I nodded affectionately, “Let’s put him in the jar.” I replied. 

               Delicate translucent fingers placed the leaf in the gar and sealed it up as tight as she could.  I pulled Ella in close and kissed the top of her bare head.

               “Should we go in now?” I asked she nodded as I pulled her up.

               Before I continue let me elaborate a little more my name is Grace Castel I am thirteen years old and I have had thyroid cancer, mine wasn’t fortunately wasn’t a big deal.  In fact this story isn’t about me.  It’s about Ella; this is my special connection with her, a tribute perhaps. I live with my two brother’s mother father and Ella.  Ella and I both have had cancer, I have won my fight, Ella is still fighting and we can only pray that she wins hers too. 

               I’m slim, well scrawny really arm like sticks and stringy brown hair.  I have the same sort of skin that Ella has, pale almost translucent, but with every month is starts to fill with more color.  I think that I would be hard to love, I never have loved anyone more than Ella, well I can’t say that but it’s like a good book, there are some you want to share with the world and others that are just yours.  Ella is my little girl; we share a connection of something that you don’t think that would help a connection with two people. Disease. 

My sister and I have the same cancer, A lung disorder that fills them with fluid and destroys you from the inside.  I never minded the oxygen tubes and surgeries. Like all things, cancer just wants to be alive.  It’s a living instinct everything has, to claw, bite, kick, lie, cheat, and fight tooth and nail until you finally lose.  But when it spread to Ella that was too much.  To watch her suffer, to see her cry for things no one should ever have to worry about. To know that she may not win this fight is when I finally understood.  This drew us closer and this drove us away.

I guess this started when I was in Mrs. Ashwand’s eight grade class

“I want you to pick a person and write about how they inspire you to follow your dreams, or become a better person.” She announced

I wasn’t worried I had written a lot of story and they were all good, the problem was that I had no one to write about.  Girls would talk about how they would right about their friends and family.  I thought of writing about some of my favorite authors, but decided not to.  I didn’t know them they weren’t people I could ask about, and I wanted it to mean something to me.

“Mrs. Ashwand,” I said “I don’t have anyone to write about.”

“Oh I’m sure you do, pick people that have done good things.” She answered, “Look at all these amazing people.” She stopped and started flipping through pictures. “Harriet Tubman, William Shakespeare, Florence Nightingale, they surely can inspire you.”

“I guess.”

“Grace, you’re a good student, you never have disappointed me when it came to writing.  This wasn’t meant to be a hard assignment.” She remarked..                                       .                                            .                             

               I walked to the front door to Ella celebrating wildly by jumping on the coffee table.

“Grace.” She called “Percy is in his cocoon he’s going to turn into a butterfly, and Jason said that he was going to die.”

“Get off the table.” I said rather harshly.

I never should have been so harsh to her; she is so young she never ever deserved anything like that.  She never deserved to be yelled at.  She was a brave little soldier that had already fought battles.  No one should ever have been cruel to her, ever..                                        .                                            .

I woke up to Ella screaming everyone in the house awake.  I flipped over and grabbed her oxygen tank, she was gasping for breath but it was full.  The alarm clock read 1:00 she went to bed at eight what could be wrong!  Mom and dad ran in the room and in five minutes were in the car speeding away toward the hospital leaving me with Jason and Leo. .                          .                             .

               Grandma came to pick us up around 11:00.  She was trying to wipe away her tears, but I could still see them.

               “Ella’s doing okay for now.”

               “What was wrong?” I questioned

               “Her lungs were the problem; they were filled up with more than liter of fluid.  Now I want all of you to get in the car.”

I was just about to get in the car but I remembered something and told them to wait.  .                .

               When we reached the hospital a few people were already there, they welcomed us with hugs and kisses, telling us that it would be all right.  We waited for what seemed like hours until a young woman in pink scrubs came up to me and told me that Ella wanted to see me.

               “Room 305 okay, try and be quiet.”  As I walked down the bright white hallway it felt almost eerie the way myfootsteps shuffled against the floor.  I felt like a stranger in a place I once knew.  It was filled with things that were alive but unknown, it was scary I didn’t know what was, there but cancer and for the first time I wasn’t angry or sorry or upset, just scared.

               As I reached the door the strange essence of the terror that had filled me with something that was familiar, emptiness.  Ella was there a slow beeping sound was just white noise in the air her skin looked like paper; her limbs looked like they had never been used.  Ella was helpless.  We are all insignificant beings in a world of turmoil some people get it easy others must fight; we live in a world where we are drowning information but starving for knowledge, suffocating in good things but hunger for anything that is good, people are around us every day and we can’t help but feel alone.  Ella was a fighter she never had it easy, I would never get it easy, and we all knew it.

               Ella’s head was tilted to the side gazing out the window; she gentle turned her head and asked me to open the window.  A gust of wind blew in letting in the sunshine it felt good to have it rest on my face.  Ella’s little arm reached out as if to grab something that wasn’t there, I returned to her bed and her hand felt its wayinto mine

               “I have something for you.” I whispered quietly

               I reached into the bag I was carrying and pulled out a jar that held a new monarch butterfly.  Ella gasped

               ‘Percy?” she asked quietly.

               I nodded and set the jar on a table next to her bed.  She picked up the jar and unscrewed the lid small fingernails laced around the milkweed leaf and lifted it from the jar the butterfly crawled across her hand until it gently rested on her nail.  She let out a high clear laugh that could only be described as beautiful.  This was my last good moment with her.  The very last time I got to see her face or touch her hand. 

Ella died on November second.  This was a day where you could only think.  It was like my body was in a paralysis that couldn’t be broken.  I spent hours sitting on Ella’s bed waiting for her to come running through the door waiting for her to wrap her arms around my neck and grip me tight.  But she never came; it was only me and the butterfly stickers that decorated the walls.  I was surrounded by people that loved me but I was alone. One day in the fall just three days after Ella’s death I was again waiting.  When an idea suddenly dawned on me.  It was sent from Ella just for me she was there, I knew it. I  slowly got up in front of the class and held up my paper.

“My paper is written on the bravest person I have ever known.”  I said my voice shaking.  “A person that didn’t know a lot but still found a way to inspire people.  Ella Mary Castle.  As a lot of you know Ella was my little sister, she recently passed away but she is and will always be my hero.  And,” I stopped my voice shook as I spoke the words, “I am so proud of her.”

I quickly finished the rest of what I had written and walked briskly to Mrs.Ashwand’s desk before anyone could say anything.  No one else read their paper that day; although it was short I knew I had said what a million people couldn’t have.  That day was also the day I set Percy free as I watched him flutter his wings I knew ella was watching, she would always be watching.  I kept the butterfly jar each year filling it with a new butterfly.  The one after Percy was called Ella because I knew she would like it.  Ella is still looking out for me she is the butterfly I put in jars every year.  My precious Ella you’re not gone just far away, watching me always.