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Quote by Susan Meissner

“I hope she still thinks butterflies are beautiful. I think they are. We shouldn't think for a moment that just because their lives are short they shouldn't be there.”

Quote by Susan Meissner

Work

As Bright as Heaven

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Author

Susan Meissner
Susan Meissner

Susan Meissner is an American author known for her poignant emotional descriptions and profound character development. Her works often explore themes of family, love, and faith, and are highly appreciated by readers. more

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“Oggi went to his mother's rose garden and gathered a collection of fallen petals and leaves. When his hands were full he carried them back to Alice and placed them on the dirt around her. Back and forth he went, between the rose garden and Alice, until his circle was complete. He jumped inside it and sat down. 'After my dad died I did this to make myself feel better.' Oggi wrapped his arms around his knees. 'I told myself, anything inside the circle is safe from sadness. I'd make the circle as big or as little as I'd like. Once when Mum wouldn't stop crying I made a circle around the whole house. Except I had to use all of the petals on her roses to do that, and she didn't react the way I thought she would.' Yellow butterflies fluttered over the roses. As Alice watched their wings, tiny lemon flames, she remembered how they hovered over the sea in summer, basked in the casuarina trees, and tapped against her bedroom window at night.”

“When we exited the greenhouse, a kaleidoscope of butterflies floated over our heads, whirling in the sky. They were beautiful, their wings a creamy butter speckled with black. The top portion of the wings had stripes, similar to tiger markings, and the hind portion was marked with inlaid sapphire-blue crescents and one golden orange spot. One landed on my shoulder and fluttered its wings. "Those are flambé butterflies. It's how your grand-mère came up with the name for the other restaurant," said Phillipa. "I Googled the English name: scarce swallowtails." "I prefer flambé," I said.”

“At the time your book was written, the full story of the monarch migration was unknown to humanity." "When did they find it out?" Preston asked. The answer, to Dellarobia's astonishment, was within Ovid's lifetime. He had been just a bit older than Preston when the discovery was announced in the National Geographic, in 1976. A Canadian scientist chased the mystery his whole life, devising a tag that would stick to butterfly wings, recruiting volunteers to help track them, losing the trail many times. And then one winter's day, as an old man on shaky legs, he climbed a mountain in Michoacan to see what must have looked like his dream of heaven... Ovid could still quote passages of the article from memory: They carpeted the ground in their tremulous legions. He said he remembered exactly where he was when he read that article, and how he felt. "Where were you?" "Outside the post office, sitting on a lobster crate. I spent a lot of Saturdays there. My mother let me read the magazines before they went to their subscribers. I was so excited by the photos in that article, I ran all the way down Crown Street, all the way to West End and out a sandy road called Fortuna to the sea. I must have picked up a stick somewhere, because I remember jumping up and whacking every branch I passed, leaving a trail of flying leaves. When I got to the sea I didn't know what to do, so I threw the stick in Perseverance Bay and ran back. It was the happiest day of my life." Dellarobia wanted, of course, to know why. "Why," he repeated, thinking about it. "It was just like any schoolboy. I thought everything in the world was already discovered. Already in my books. A lot of dead stuff that put me to sleep. That was the day I understood the world is still living.”