Life when I was a kid? Tough. I was always thinking, thinking that there was no way that I’d ever not succeed in life. I would not ever have a house with empty cupboards. With no one to offer my guidance and direction as I approached my post-teens, I knew one thing, I’d alway have bread on my table, a roof over our heads, and savagely product my kids, should I be so lucky.

It all worked out, I married very very happily and we had 4 children. I was determined to smooth my rough edges. I read the Safire column in the Sunday New York Times magazine carefully, pursued my interest in fine art, and we purchased season tickets to the American Opera and the New York City Ballet, at Lincoln Center.

When Virginia suggested that Mike Barwick would agree to lead me to the Zebra Heliconian butterflies that lived in a grove of Passionflower near his home in Kathleen, Georgia,  I jumped at the opportunity.

I tell you, when we hiked to that place, and within minutes the Zebras flew in to nectar at those Passionflower vines, I was transfixed. Their gentle, elegant flight so evoked the memories of those operas, with Frieda A”H (Of Blessed Memory). The beauty of the dance of the ballerinas . . . It was as if they studied under the Zebras, and vice versa.

Frieda has Left Us, and it’s clear to me, W-o choreographs the flight of these mesmerizing butterflies, Cathy, Susan, Leslie, Virginia, Melanie Jim, Deepthi, Lois, Marcie, Anthony, Lauren, Sylbie, Debi, Margaret, Kenne, Roger, Angela, and Barbara Ann.

Jeff