Thanks for those stories everyone! The butterly stories seem to be pretty common. When my cousin died at 16, he was 4 months shy of watching his sister graduate high school. On that day a butterfly landed on her leg and stayed with her all through the ceremony. She always believe that was him showing his older sister support on her big day.

In terms of my own recent loss of my mother, butterflies have never really held any significance for either of us... other than that story about my dear cousin but that wasn't something we experienced personally. But the first day I visited her grave after the funeral, the flowers still alive and laying across the fresh dirt, in my thoughts I asked "mama where are you?" and seconds later a butterfly flitted over to the flowers, rested on one of the petals for a moment, then moved on. I have no idea if this means anything, I was skeptical then and am skeptical now, because I don't want to believe that any little sign is her just to make myself feel better. I am struggling through each day trying to learn how to live my life without my amazing mother and best friend, and every night praying that she will come to me in a dream... I don't want to have to wait until I die to be with her again