Magdalena Munro's tale:

Guilt has wracked me for a month now because the violator of life was not a feckless, unconscious day traveler but someone who communes with nature, a lifelong vegetarian, and a naturalist at heart. 

I'm also a mother.

Hiking is a passion of mine and I get up to the hills behind my home in Burbank 5-6 days a week and usually venture up the Vital Link Trail, a dusty and steep incline with plenty of tenuous switchbacks.  It's one of those inclines that just keep going up, up, and up.  It's my escape and my religion.

It was late March when I witnessed hundreds of monarch caterpillars at a rather high elevation.  I stooped down every minute or so to pick them up and place them on the flowers they were devouring, saving them from accidentally being squished by fellow hikers.  It was splendid to see such strong and powerful caterpillars everywhere I looked.  When I told my son of the sightings, he was envious because I take him on another ridge of the Verdugos that is easier to hike and won't allow him up the Vital Link Trail. The trail is too narrow and is not in the best of shape--much too precarious for a seven year old.  He so badly wanted to see a monarch caterpillar.  And the idea sprung into my mind that I would find one for my son.  I rationalized that I had a beautiful garden in my back yard, and that I would take the yellow flowers they were feasting upon and plant them in my garden to afford this big beauty plenty of food.  I put my son's perceived delight before everything else in my mind.

The next morning I packed a plastic container with moist dirt and ran up the trail which is thankfully only two minutes from my home.  After approximately a 2 mile incline I found a caterpillar.  I gently picked him from the plant he was eating and placed him in my container.  I grabbed five of the plants, roots intact, and raced down the hill as fast as I could.  I went into my garden and planted the flowers into the garden.  I felt foolish when I saw how they flopped over; they were too long and my soil too shallow.  I then called Armstrong and even Home Depot and Lowe's and asked if they had milkweed plants.  They  didn't.  I tried to put the caterpillar on the flower that flopped and it walked away with what seemed to me a singular purpose, deep into the big mound of lavender and herbs growing in the garden.  I don't know why I didn't stop it and take it back up the hill at that precise moment.  After five minutes I thought to do this and looked for it but somehow I could not find it.  I felt terrible knowing it would starve to death.  I called my Mom hoping she would console me but she said, "Shame on you. You know better. You of all people! Observe! And let nature be!"  I said nothing for I knew she was correct.   

Sharing all of this with my son has taught him an important lesson and has reminded me that even those of us with kind hearts and a love of nature,  it is easy to slip.