I’m going to tell you a story of perseverance, but before that I’ll flash back two years when, for the first time, I had the opportunity to follow the whole cycle of a giant swallowtail butterfly that I named Mira—one of the most beautiful creatures I’ve seen.

Her life started in my orange tree, when I spotted a weird creature on one of the leaves I had pruned.

She looked like bird poop and was slightly bigger than a grain of rice.

After talking to a neighbor friend who knew a lot about butterflies, I decided to be part of her journey of transformation, creating a habitat in a small Tupperware container, for the first stage of her life.

Every day, I talked to her while I cleaned her home and added fresh new leaves from my orange tree.

Mira seemed to enjoy the bond we had created, letting me caress her as she was growing and shedding in her now bigger container.

One day, a few weeks later, she stopped eating and spent the whole day in a vertical position, where she purged her system of waste one last time.

She had reached the size of my pinkie finger and I knew Mira was ready to move on to the next phase.

Using a small vase with a tree branch inside, I provided Mira with the perfect spot to transform into a chrysalis.

For a couple of days, I witnessed her body stiffen and shrink, adopting the shape of the number 7 against the branch. 

The following morning two silky strings held her firmly and the part of the number 7 touching the branch had separated from it.

Mira would never look the same nor would she remember anything before her transformation.

Twenty days later, Mira came out slowly, with wet folded wings that took about an hour to dry before she would be ready to take off.

She was now a gorgeous giant swallowtail butterfly.

After Mira came Pablo, Ben, and a few other guests we had the pleasure of following through the whole process—some on the tree, others at home.

Last fall, around October, when the season was already over, Seva hatched his little egg on the lemon tree.

The weather was cooler than normal, and the chances for him to survive were small.

So I repeated the process that, this time, took much longer than expected.

In November Seva was ready to start his transformation.

But nothing came out after twenty days, or thirty, or a month. I read that when the season is over, they sometimes wait until the Spring to come out.

Seva lived inside the house with us during the rainy winter and the rainy Spring.

I checked on him every morning, expecting a change any day. But nothing happened. In early June, every day after breakfast, I used to take him out to the sun and brought him in at night, because it was still a little too cold for him.

Then he started spending the nights outside as well.

Still no change.

In mid July Everybody told me that Seva was probably dead inside.

There were butterflies everywhere, mainly monarchs and occasionally the stunning giant swallowtail.

Seva didn’t seem to be in a hurry to wake up, but I didn’t give up on him.

I moved the vase containing the branch and Seva to the base of the orange tree and kept visiting him multiple times every day.

Two weeks later, at the very end of July, Seva woke up, opened the top of what had been his home for eight months and flew away to live a new free life as a beautiful giant swallowtail butterfly.

Some things in life require more time than we desire or predict, but there is a hidden beauty in patience and perseverance.

We are used to a fast-paced society that values instant gratification, where waiting appears intolerable and a source of frustration.

But just like for most trees, the seed needs time to develop, grow and establish its roots before it can break through the soil and reach for the sky.

Patience and perseverance are like the water and sunlight that nourish the seed and help it blossom into a magnificent tree.