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Last Sunday, Quiet Oaks Hospice House celebrated their 7th annual Butterfly Release Memorial.  This event began in 2012 with just 100 butterflies being released in remembrance of loved ones at the pavilion by Lake George in conjunction with SummerTime by George.

The butterflies are purchased from Butterfly Memories out of Isanti, MN.  Raising strong, healthy monarchs is quite an art and must be well timed.  Rebecca with Butterfly Memories shared that her parents helped the morning of the event to capture and insert the butterflies into the envelopes.  The temperature they are maintained at is what allows them to do this without damaging their fragile wings and legs.

In 2014 Quiet Oaks partnered with the Music in the Garden Concert Series, the St. Cloud Symphony Orchestra and Munsinger Clemens Gardens Botanical Society to create this beautiful event to remember and celebrate the wonderful joy and treasure of loved one’s legacy and life.  It has been held there ever since. This year 350 butterflies were released.  I watched as one woman waited patiently for her butterfly to wake up and fly away.  The smile on her face when it lifted off was awesome.  1,100 of us showed up to share in the experience and most stayed to enjoy the awesome music of Harpers Chord.  To get on the mailing list for future events, simply Google Quiet Oaks Hospice House.

This week Live From Here is a rewind to March and a show performed at the Fitzgerald Theater in Saint Paul. There will be music from Caitlyn Smith and Väsen, and comedy from Mary Lynn Rajskub. Plus: Madison Cunningham joins Chris Thile and the band for the Song of the Week, “Cure-All,” and sings Jeff Buckley’s “Dream Brother”; Tom Papa mingles with tourists and employees at Walt Disney World; and the radio acting company deals with a surprisingly aggressive crow.

“What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning.  The end is where we start from.”  T.S. Eliot