When Kelly Eden, a model and artist in Los Angeles, started raising monarch butterflies last year, she quickly fell in love with the process — watching each tiny caterpillar transform into a winged miracle.
This summer, she released ten healthy monarchs into her garden, their orange-and-black wings glinting in the sun.
But last month, two of her butterflies emerged differently. As soon as they wriggled free from their chrysalides, Eden noticed their wings looked wrong — small, uneven, and crumpled.
“Even when their wings are still wet and folded, you can usually see the symmetrical shape,” Eden told The Dodo. “But theirs looked uneven and crumpled.”
Normally, a monarch’s wings fill with fluid, expand, and harden within hours, allowing it to fly away. But for these two, that process never happened. Their wings stayed fragile and misshapen — and Eden’s heart sank.
“They’re tiny creatures, but there’s so much effort and transformation that goes into reaching that final butterfly stage,” she said. “To imagine all that potential cut short by damaged wings is devastating.”
For most butterflies, the inability to fly means a short, difficult life. They can’t reach flowers for nectar or migrate as instinct drives them to do. But Eden couldn’t bring herself to let these fragile souls go without trying to give them some comfort first.
“We had to choose: end their struggle or give them comfort,” she wrote on Instagram. “We chose the latter.”
So, one sunny afternoon, Eden sat outside on her garden swing with the two butterflies perched gently on her knee.
As she slowly rocked back and forth, the air rippled past them — and they began to flap their wings, as if remembering what flight was supposed to feel like.
“They didn’t move around very much,” Eden said, “but they seemed the most alert and content when they were perched on my knee in the garden.”
Believing a parasite or environmental factor had caused their condition, Eden made sure to protect her other butterflies. She created a cozy indoor enclosure just for the two with soft perches, fresh nectar, and gentle light.
There, her “little broken-winged friends,” as she called them, spent their days together — peaceful, safe, and loved.
“Sometimes nature is cruel,” Eden said softly. “We don’t have to be.”
