July 2026 | 7:00 pm * Providence Newberg Medical Center Healing Garden
On July 13, 2025 the Nora Madelyn Fund for Infant and Child Loss and the Providence Newberg Medical Center’s Perinatal Loss Committee hosted the 17th annual remembrance ceremony for families who have lost a child or children in pregnancy or as an infant.
The ceremony was held in the Providence Newberg Medical Center’s Healing Garden. Families were able to release a butterfly in memory of their child or children.
Families will receive an e-mail in the next few weeks with a link to the ceremony photos, including their butterfly release.
This is an in-person event. The ceremony will be photographed, but not recorded. Butterflies will not be available for pick-up. If you are unable to attend the event, your butterfly will be released by a volunteer.
Why do we release butterflies?
Since the fund’s inception, the butterfly has been the symbol of the Nora Madelyn Fund and is the artistic inspiration for the memorial in the Providence Newberg Medical Center’s Healing Garden.
Butterflies and Souls
from International Butterfly Breeders Association
Releasing butterflies at funerals or memorials not only takes away the sorrow of the event but gives great hope that one day their loved one will return with brightly colored wings just to let them know that “all is well.”
For over 8,000 years many societies felt that our souls left our bodies in the form of a butterfly and many religions still subscribe to the belief. The first actual depiction of this phenomenon was found in Turkey as a cave painting dating back to 6,000 BCT and many religions still subscribe to the belief.
Aristotle gave the butterfly the name Psyche, the Greek word for soul. To the indigenous people of ancient Mexico, the morning star was a butterfly that represented the soul of the dead. In Germany and Ireland, it was a long-held belief that butterflies were the souls of departed children. In Japan all departed people returned as white butterflies, while in Chinese mysticism, butterflies symbolize long life, as the word for butterfly in Mandarin also means “70 years.” The custom in Spain was to throw wine over the ashes of the deceased as a toast to the butterfly that would escape with the soul.
The Christian religion views the butterfly lifecycle not only as a symbol of resurrection of Christ but as the lifecycle for all. The caterpillar symbolizes an earthly life where people are preoccupied with taking care of their physical needs. The chrysalis becomes our tomb until the butterfly emerges into a new life free of material restriction.
A Buddhist saying is “What the caterpillar perceives is the end, to the butterfly is just the beginning.”
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