As I was sewing in my room the other night, I heard an insect repeatedly flying into the overhead light. I was trying, unsuccessfully, to ignore the annoying tapping—when the tink-tink of bug on glass abruptly stopped. I looked. The bug was on the ground.
I saw that it was a ladybug and that it wasn’t moving, so I figured it had probably knocked itself out. Just in case it woke up and decided to resume ramming the light, I grabbed a nearby Tupperware container, removed the scraps of string that were inside, and placed it on top of the motionless ladybug. The longer I looked at it, the more I felt like it looked…dead. It died. It hit the light too hard and died.
Poor thing.
It was past my bedtime at that point, and I didn’t want to go aaaaaaall the way down the stairs to toss it out into the flowerbed, so I left it where it was. The next day I forgot all about it until I got home from work and spotted the Tupperware on the floor at the end of my bed. The ladybug was still under the Tupperware and still dead. It turns out I was also still too lazy to go down a flight of stairs to take it out, so it stayed there another night.
The next morning, this morning, I accidentally knocked the Tupperware over with my foot, and thought, “Ah, yes, the ladybug! I should really toss that outside,” but in my early morning, pre-work rush, I again failed to take it out. All I managed to do was pick the ladybug up and set it respectfully in the Tupperware so I wouldn’t accidentally step on it.
When I got home tonight, I finally decided to stop being lazy and throw the poor dead thing out. The ladybug was still in the Tupperware…CRAWLING AROUND.
It was dead. It rose on the third day. It is the Jesus of ladybugs.
I quickly took it outside and gently set it on my flowerbed.
Dear little ladybug, will you please help bring my garden back to life, too? ❖
LINDA COOK DEVONA
This article was published originally in 2018, in GreenPrints Issue #113.
