Garrett Neese/Daily Mining Gazette Kimi Williams of Houghton looks at a butterfly that landed on her during the annual Release and Remember event at Kestner Waterfront Park.

By GARRETT NEESE

gneese@mininggazette.com

HOUGHTON — Nineteen weeks into pregnancy, Kimi Williams lost her daughter. While grieving a week later, she went out for a ride with the girl’s father.

The windows were down, and a butterfly flew in.

“I went to pick it up and it never flew away,” she said. “It stayed with us for three days. So we figured it was kind of a sign that she was OK.”

Butterflies have come to signify solace or rebirth for many. And for the third year, UP Health System Home Care & Hospice helped with its Release and Remember event at Kestner Waterfront Park Saturday morning.

“The little wooly critter crawls into a cocoon, and the metamorphosis it undertakes is like human life,” said Julie Beck, bereavement coordinator for UP Health System Home Care and Hospice. “It’s no longer a caterpillar. Its spirit has changed, and it comes out as something more beautiful.”

The event also raises funds for the Hospice Promise Foundation, which helps patients and families with important expenses outside of hospice they can’t afford on their own.

Beck hopes the butterflies can also help reduce the fear around talking about death.

“I’ve lost all my parents, many in-laws, all of these people,” she said. “And yet when I release that butterfly, I can create an image in my head of how they’re all in a better place, how their lives were worthwhile, they created legacies, they were beautiful people, and without them I wouldn’t be here.”

By adding monarch butterflies to the local ecosystem, it’s also helping the environment, Beck said. They’re crucial in helping pollinate wildflowers and other plants.

As the clock neared 11 a.m., Beck told the crowd to open their envelopes. As local singing group Noteworthy broke into song, people watched the butterflies emerge.

Some of the butterflies took off immediately. Others hopped to the grass, or attached themselves to people.

Williams was a magnet. They alighted on her shoulder, and also on her arm — near the “You’ll never know dear, how much I love you” tattoo she got to honor her children — including the daughter she lost.

“All of these people, we are unfortunately connected to through grief, but we are also connected through these beautiful, tiny butterflies,” Williams said. “It sounds cheesy, but they were magical. Something so simple can bring so many people together and turn it into something beautiful.”