Usually, everything goes very well. We watch them with awe...eagerly awaiting the beautiful painted lady butterfly that we know will emerge. They hatch…they dry their wings...and then Chris, oh so carefully, places them on his finger, gently releasing them outside. He always says, “Goodbye my baby. Be happy! Be safe!”

This year, things didn't turn out the way we'd hoped. We got our 5 caterpillars, and gave them a snug, safe “womb” in which to develop. We watched them with delight as they grew and grew, finally making that long journey up the sides of their jars to the lid, where they formed their “J” to go into the chrysalis stage. With anticipation, we awaited the hatching, eager to see those beautiful orange and black wings spread out in flight. But, something went wrong.

Two butterflies were born with mangled, twisted wings. They couldn't fly. I waited a day, giving them sugar water, to see if the process was just taking longer than usual. Things didn't improve. Finally, I took them out into the bright sunlight, thinking that God's healing sun would dry their little wings.

That's when I noticed they didn't have all of their legs. Sadly, I told Chris to put them in the rose garden and leave them, hoping he wouldn't be there to see the inevitable: a bird swooping down to capture them to feed her young. Such is the way of nature I reasoned. It's the only way.

As Chris was dutifully taking them down to place them by the roses, totally innocent of what I was asking him to do to his beloved butterflies, it occurred to me: nature doesn't HAVE to be this way. They don't have to be “perfect” in the literal sense of the word. If they couldn't pollinate and procreate, their right to exist wasn't automatically negated. They could just be themselves, giving pleasure to a six-year-old little boy who loved them, and was willing to turn them loose simply for their own good.

Yes, their wings were mangled, and they flopped when they tried to walk, but they had their own beauty, their own value, their own perfection.

Chris and I are keeping the butterflies until they die a natural death. I know it will be hard for Chris when they die. He wont’ be able to look for them next spring, thinking that every painted lady he sees is his beloved Sam or Lou, but he will learn a very valuable lesson, and I'm pleased to learn it with him.

You see, Chris is adopted. My husband and I were the seventh couple called. Chris was headed for Children's Services because he wasn't “perfect.” He was born with a moderately severe unilateral clefting of the lip, gum, and hard and soft palates.

While he was carrying his butterflies down to the rose garden, I suddenly thought, "What if we had not been contacted, and Chris had not come home to me? I would not be here, in this garden, enjoying the unique beauty and perfection of my son. I would not know of his goodness, his sweetness, his gentleness, and my life would not be as full and rich as it has become."

I called Chris to me, and oh so carefully, we returned Sam and Lou to their “womb” for safe keeping. Within their imperfection dwelt perfection; their existence, a lesson so gratefully learned. I looked at my son, and saw him smile. I think that he understood long before I did.

Debra Shiveley Welch is a third generation poet, essayist, novelist, short story and children’s book author. Her well-received children’s book A Very Special Child is “… a unique and spiritual collection of poems and short stories which readers, especially new mothers and those who have recently adopted a child will find enlightening and expressive… Rita Chatman - ©Creative Arts Times – 2006.”

Her son’s recently published children’s book “Christopher Bullfrog Catcher…will capture your heart; it can happen in many ways, but each time it is fresh and new. This is the case as I read this delightful work by 13 year old Christopher Welch as scribed by his mother, Debra Welch.

Christopher has learning differences, but this has not quenched the fire of life within this special young man, nor his desire to share adventures of his life with others. Shirley Johnson, Senior Reviewer, MidWest Book Review.” “Christopher Bullfrog Catcher” is currently being translated into Japanese.

Her most recent book, Jesus Gandhi Oma Mae Adams is a murder mystery co-authored with Linda Lee Greene. This sweeping saga tells the story of Oma Mae Adams, a charismatic, televangelist and philanthropist, who is gunned down in front of the television station where she tapes her popular religious program, her shocking death leaves a bereft world with two questions: who killed Oma Mae Adams — and why?

Mrs. Welch is now writing a docu-novel in which she chronicles her childhood of poverty and loneliness leading her to The Adoption of Christopher.

"Debra Shiveley Welch is a master storyteller. I find her writing to be very much on the order of what is considered, in old terms, a true storyteller, one that takes the nucleus and expands it to take on all the senses -- I can see what she sees, hear what she hears, smell and taste what she smells and tastes. Most importantly, though, I feel what she feels." Linda J. Alexander - Books for the Thinking Reader