I keep caterpillars, not dogs or cats

In our home, we raise about 40 swallowtail butterflies every year.

When I tell people this, they almost always ask me to repeat it.

"Huh? 40?"
That's right.

If I told my self from two years ago, I'm sure I'd think, 'What are you talking about?'

It all started on my way home from work.

I found a swallowtail caterpillar on the side of the road and casually mentioned to my husband (Cabbage Taro), "I haven't seen a caterpillar in a long time."

His reply was,"I want to keep it."That was it.

...Excuse me?
Not a dog or a cat? A caterpillar?

From that one sentence, our life with caterpillars began.

Of course, at first, we didn't know anything.

We put leaves in a paper cup and raised them with a lid on.

But when you watch them every day, strangely enough, you start to get attached.

"I want to raise our little ones in an environment as close to nature as possible."I became a 'bug parent'—not quite a helicopter parent, but something similar.

Now, we just stick citrus branches in a vase.
The rest is up to them.

However, the little ones themselves don't grow exactly as we'd like. (Because they're bugs, after all.)

Before we know it,they've escaped to turn into chrysalises.

"Isn't one missing?" searching the whole house has become an annual tradition.

And then, a few days later.

Ahhh!! There you are!! I sometimes find them in the closet or on the ceiling.

You, you climbed all the way up there?
And you've already turned into a chrysalis, too.

I don't even have a stepladder, so if they turn into a chrysalis on the ceiling, I have no choice but to watch over them from there.

Even if they go missing, about a month later
they safely emerge as butterflies and fly away.

And the empty chrysalis shells left behind.
There are still many stuck to the ceiling...

My ceiling is decorated with memories from every year.

They aren't stylish dried flowers.
They are empty chrysalis shells.

Because of this, I raise about 40 of them every year, but not all of them can become butterflies.

Some lose their lives along the way.
And some don't open their wings properly, either.

And that's when I learned for the first time.
That it's not butterflies that come out of the chrysalis, but parasitic wasps and flies.

I will never forget the shock of that day.

The natural world is truly harsh.

That is why, every time I see them dry their wings and fly off into the sky,I feel a bit like a parent, saying, "Have a safe trip."

Until two years ago, even if I saw a swallowtail butterfly, I would just think, "Oh, a butterfly."

But now it's different.

Every time I see a swallowtail butterfly in town,
I've started to think, "That little one must have had a hard time getting this far."

Of course, it's not one of my own.
But I feel a sense of kinship with them anyway.

I never thought that just bringing home a single larva would change the way I see the world so much.

Once again this year, Kyabetsu Taro brought home larvae from somewhere.

And while I say, "You brought back three of them?" I insert branches into a vase, and a few days later, I am crawling around the house searching for the caterpillars that have escaped.

This is the quintessential summer tradition in our home.