...Yeah, it is. Here's the text again in case you can't read it:
As I watch my 5 year-old granddaughter play in the yard with her favorite necklace around her neck, I stop to reminisce of the years that have gone by since Heather became a butterfly.
I wore my new charm on a necklace every day, Heather happily bouncing along with me, dangling above my chest. The soul transference was a resounding success, allowing us to bury her old, battered butterfly body in the sand near the milkweed plant she had laid her eggs on. After Dad left for his new job far away, Mom and I watched Heather's offspring hatch, then eventually become beautiful monarchs in their own right. As her mind had reverted back to childhood, Heather watched from my neckline in awe, not having any realization that they were technically her children.
Heather would be there for every moment of my life, hanging happily from her chain as I went back to school, found a boyfriend, graduated from high school and college, broke up with my boyfriend, found a new one, and eventually got married.
Once I turned 30, I had my first child. We named her Heather Jr., and she grew to love butterflies just as much as Heather had in her childhood. At the mental age of 22 at this point, Heather broadcast a feeling of longing whenever I played with my daughter. 4 years later, I asked her if she wanted to be given to Heather Jr. The feeling of relief said more than words ever could. I passed down the necklace that was my little sister to my first child that day. The unbridled joy I felt from Heather as she hung from the tiny neck of her niece was the best thing I could ever have hoped for. As Heather Jr. grew up, I had one more child, a son I named Heath in honor of the little brother Heather sometimes took the form of so many years ago.
My daughter learned the truth about her aunt who was hanging from her neck when she turned 8. I told her that she should only talk to Heather when she wasn't around other people, but she occasionally slipped up. Those listening just brushed it off as an imaginative little girl talking to her favorite necklace, so our secret was safe.
As a young woman, Heather Jr. married the love of her life. She asked me permission to tell her husband about Heather, which I granted. Soon after, she had a daughter named Vanessa, after the common name of her own favorite butterfly species. Vanessa was brought up to also learn about Heather, whose mind had aged to well over 40 by this point, myself in my 50's. Heather once again requested to be given to the little girl, who never went anywhere without her great-aunt hanging from her neck, dangling around her belly button.
This brought me back to the present. Heather had flown off of Vanessa's neck, falling in the grass nearby. At the mental age of 55, she knew she would be found quickly, but Vanessa was crying. I hopped up as quickly as my 63-year-old form could, found Heather in the grass, and gave her back to Vanessa. She stopped crying, immediately happy again as she placed the living necklace around her neck again, this time tucking it under her shirt. Hugging me around the neck, she ran back out into the yard to pretend to be a butterfly.
I basked in nostalgia, having witnessed this behavior in two other girls before this. Heather Jr. quietly walked out, having returned home from work, watching her daughter playing the same game she had over twenty years ago, wearing the same necklace she had grown up with. Heather herself bounced happily between Vanessa's stomach and pink shirt, not caring in the slightest she could no longer see anything around her. She was comfortable in her tiny metal body, with a piece of her former self tucked safely behind her clasp and window, showing her former wing to the world.
Heather was content in bringing happiness to those around her, and wouldn't trade the experience for anything in the world. She was there to comfort me when I gave birth to Heather Jr. She was present when Heather Jr. did the same for Vanessa. Whenever the child wearing her was injured, she would mentally soothe them into happiness again. She would be given to Vanessa's daughter years later, then to her daughter, until finally, once she mentally aged to 120, her consciousness would finally fade, bringing her to whatever comes after death.
I can't wait to see my little sister again.
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