My husband, Victor, and I were killed in a terrible car accident while we were on the way home from our anniversary dinner. It all happened so quickly. Eliana’s father and I were sitting at a red light on Maple Drive when a drunk driver swerved, hit our car, and mangled it against a brick building. My husband’s gray hair was now red from all of our blood. My husband looked into my emerald green eyes and stroked my fiery red hair one last time before we both passed.

I remember the police going to our home. As I watched from heaven, I could see my precious Eli crying. She hit the police officer profusely out of anger and sorrow; not knowing exactly which to feel. How could her father and I have left her? What was she going to do now? Was she going to be safe?

For a few days Eliana lived in a foster home. After only 3 days the Vontrap family adopted her. The Vontraps lived in a lovely, quaint house, with a beautiful flower garden outside. Each room had its own unique touch to it. When the Vontraps went to pick up Eliana they were grinning from ear to ear with excitement of adding another child into their family of two boys and one girl. Eli, on the other hand, had changed from her easy, outgoing self, to a shy, introverted girl. She used to wear bright pinks, yellows, and blues with patterns and ribbons. She wore her dirty brown hair crimped or in some other
way that others would not imagine. Now she wore plain colored clothing and wore her hair half up with wisps framing her face.

A few weeks passed and Mrs. Vontrap, who had blonde hair flowing down to her back with bright blue eyes, was growing fretful. Eliana had started school, but she was not making any friends. Besides that she was not even talking to her new parents. What Mrs. Vontrap did not know was that Eliana was secretly going to a meadow surrounded by trees everyday where she found someone or somethings to confide in.

As I watched down on her, in this meadow with the warm sun shining on her face and the wind blowing the long grass, she slowly opened up to her new best friends Alphonse and Oscar. See, now, the thing you need to know about Alphonse and Oscar is that they were not human, but caterpillars. They were the perfect friends for her. They gave her their undivided attention. She could tell them anything, including how she could not open up to anyone was because of our deaths.

I loved to watch how her nose crinkled as their fuzzy bodies tickled her hand as they crawled over it. She told them everything from how her day went to how she could not open up to anyone because she thought that she would eventually forget us.

Eliana was far from wrong, but I knew why she thought this. The night her father and I went to dinner she got into a fight with me. As I left the house, she told me that she hated me and never wanted to see me again. I can see it in her face now. She feels the accident is her fault. I not only saw it in her face, I heard it as she told Alphonse and Oscar. On this particular night, as it started to get dark outside, Eli decided to take

Alphonse and Oscar home with her where she would keep them. How could my precious baby think that? It was not her fault?

As weeks turned into months I started to notice a change in Eliana. She was starting to become her normal self again. There was something else though. Eliana started to make friends at school. Oh, how I loved to see my little girl happy again! Her first friend at Upper Arlington High School, home of the Golden Bears, was Liz Maritnez. Liz was exactly like Eliana in everyway, and I think that is what drew Eli toward her. Eli made many friends each different in their own way. I could see that each friend helped her to open up.

Friday April 26, 2008, was where Eli had changed the most. She was back in the meadow with Alphonse and Oscar, oh how those two have changed from small black caterpillars to beautiful butterflies bright as the sun and as colorful as the rainbow. I heard her talking to them.

“Alphonse. Oscar. I have realized that my fight with my mom did not cause the accident that her and my father died in. No it was that stupid drunk driver!”

Oh sweetie, do not cry. I am so proud of you. You finally realized that it is not your fault that your father and I died.

As the tears ran down her face like a salty river, Eli knew it was time to say goodbye to Alphonse and Oscar. As she opened her hands they flew almost as if she was letting us go through them.