Ace & The Afterlife

While I had believed in an afterlife for some time, it was still an esoteric concept, hard to wrap the brain around, simply because we just can't know with the same kind of certainty that we know so many other things. It's not tangible to us; it's a concept, and that can be hard to fully embrace. Or at least it was, until Ace died.

Just 17 days after Ace died, I was reading, Animals And The Afterlife, by Kim Sheridan. I finished reading Chapter 15, Signs & Messages, filled with stories of people seeing signs like appearing butterflies, birds, etc, which they took to indicate the presence of their recently departed pet. I put the book down and sighed, saying out loud that I would like a sign like that, too.

I went to take a shower, and about 15 minutes later, walked toward my front door, which was open, and there I saw a beautiful butterfly, on my porch. There had been a mattress pad, folded in half, across the bed, and Ace had been laying on it when he died. Afterwards, I folded it again and hung it over the porch railing. It was on the mattress pad that the butterfly found its resting spot. I was stunned and overjoyed; I took photos of it and spoke to the butterfly, thanking it for coming to me so quickly.

About a week later, I decided to try to find out what kind of butterfly it was, as I didn't recognize it. I did a search using the butterfly's colors, and quickly learned that it wasn't just any butterfly, but the most appropriate of all; it was the Mourning Cloak. As if a Monarch wouldn't suffice, Ace had to be absolutely certain I couldn't doubt his message that he was indeed still with me.