No? Good. Because it’s one of the saddest events in nature.

In the midst of working on final exams and papers, one can easily get absorbed in self-pity and unhealthy doses of stress. Will I get this done on time? what if I fail? I’m so tired…

In the past three days I have managed to switch my sleeping schedule to roughly 5am bedtime, 5pm wake up.

I was walking back from the computer lab today after working on one of my papers and I found a luna moth on the pavement near my building.

I picked her up softly, she was reluctant to move and clung to me for as long as I let her. I took her into my building to grab my camera and took some pictures (will post later).

God, what a beautiful animal. Luna moths only live approximately seven days once in their adult stage, and (as the wonderful security guard known as Bob informed me) do not eat clothes once fully grown. I could write a whole ‘nother blog post about Bob, and maybe I’ll do so later, but now’s not the time.

And then she tried to fly. The wingspan of a Luna moth can reach up to four-and-a-half inches, and she was almost exactly that. Such a big, beautiful creature… she tried so hard to fly, climbing up to the tips of my fingers, outstretching her limbs, batting her wings as fast as she could. It was like watching a hummingbird in slow motion, but she was clumsy. She fell into the grass, landed upside down, scrambling through the tall blades trying to regain her balance.

I helped her up numerous times, held her up to the railing, to the light - anything. But she couldn’t fly. Her abdomen was huge, white, and soft like snow, soft like the fur that frames a dog’s face, soft like the light spilling out from inside. And it held her down, heavy like a bag of salt, but God bless her, she tried endlessly.

Eventually I set her down on the step outside the door and left her. Tomorrow I’ll check for her, but I’m sure she’ll be gone.

Life is fleeting and painful and beautiful and if nothing else we need to enjoy it while it’s here, relish every good moment as if it were the best moment. It all ends eventually, but what a difference it can make to persevere - what it is to know that even in our last moments we have the power to change others’ perceptions.

Here’s to you, moth.