My kindergarten teacher taught me that monarchs are the only butterflies that migrate, like birds. I pictured large groups of monarchs in flashes of orange and black escaping the winter cold, clustering in the crowed treetops of sunny Mexico. In my head, the scene was so beautiful. I was at Canterbury Park in Shakopee, Minnesota, a place my mom would drag me to every summer to watch our horses’ race, when that image was destroyed. It was the end of the racing season, a time when heavy August humidity and pesky flies made it hard to do anything. Outside the barns there was a large patch of grass. Muscular racehorses were feeding on overgrown weeds, a single-blade riding mower actively finishing the job. In horror, I saw that the landscaping had ripped the wings from a monarch, the insect laying helplessly on the fresh-cut grass. Crying, I carried him to my mom in my palm. He’ll never fly again. It tickled when he inched his way up my arm. He’s never going to make it to Mexico.

Buddy, the butterfly tagged along on our three-hour drive home. I built him a sanctuary in the master bathroom. House plants and weeds from the garden. Dandelions that spewed pollen. Swollen tomatoes that rotted. I fed him red Gatorade, his long straw-like mouth uncoiling from a spiral, reaching toward the cap. He was pretty happy in the bathroom where I took care of him. Climbing across the arching branches of dead trees. As happy as he could’ve been. Buddy died three months after I found him. He never migrated; he never flew again. Nobody could have saved Buddy; I didn’t understand why. In some world, the bathroom floor, with fluorescent lighting and cold gray tiles, was his little Mexico.

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It was a sunny June morning when I found him. Three missed calls from mom. Please go check on dad. Early light cut through my window; I walked slowly through the hallway. The night before, he picked me up from seeing a movie with my friend. I couldn’t drive myself — I was only fifteen. I always dreaded it, embarrassed to see his monstrous truck pull up, covered in dirt and dust. But the next morning, when he couldn’t make out a word. When I shook him, screaming his name. When I cried in his arms. I wished I was back in that mundane moment. Blushing when his truck pulled up. Telling him about the movie. Looking in his eyes and seeing my dad for what felt like the last time.

When a region of the brain is cut off from nutrients and oxygen for long enough, it liquifies. This is called a stroke. A once hard structure slowly morphs into a wet goop. In the cerebrum, it can destroy facets of movement and feeling, speech, thinking, reasoning, memory, vision, emotions. In the brainstem, it can destroy control of breathing, heart function, balance, swallowing. Potentially resulting in death. Sometimes dead fluid can be toxic – attacking healthy tissues, eating them from the inside out. When someone has a stroke, they almost never fully recover. When you lose these things, you almost never get them back.

Visiting my dad in the hospital was a daily occurrence. I carried in flowers and heart balloons from friends. Handwritten notes from relatives. And every day – hope for his recovery. The air was dense with uncertainty, the gifts, intertwined with useless sympathy. I tried to help care for him as best as I could. I handed him his water, his tired arm emerging from under the covers, extending toward the plastic cup. I walked him to the bathroom. I filled the unwelcoming hospital room with reminders of home. Fuzzy blankets from his bed. Framed pictures of what seemed like a past life. My stuffed elephant I had never slept a day without, until now. And sometimes, I sat there selfishly, thinking about what this means for me. Who is going to drive me around? Will he make it to my graduation? My dad was always more than willing to help me when I needed him. The only thing he ever wanted in life was to make mine a good one. Will he get to see me grow up? I hoped that the hospital room, with ragged blankets and tv dinners, wouldn’t be the last he knew of me.

Neuroplasticity is the brain’s ability to reorganize neural networks. When brain matter dies, the rest of the brain tries to take control over what was lost. Like picking up and putting together the pieces of a puzzle. Slowly building back fragments of a person. Remembering what once was. Replicating it. Some people who get clot-busting drugs right after a stroke are likely to fully recover. Those that wait can never quite get back what their own body took from them. That’s the sad part; it’s a matter of time. These tissues are the fundamental building blocks of life. They are you, your memories, your thoughts, your actions. And when these tissues die, they almost never heal.

Throughout my young life, I held on to that almost. He’s almost there. He’s almost recovered. But I was being generous. My dad had his stroke on a Saturday in the dead of night. Whatever life-altering clot-busting drug they could have given him was useless in the morning when I found him. I almost saved him. Time prevailed and the hand of nature had already won.

Nobody can ever fight this; others can only try to pick up the pieces.

Sofia Mamakos is a Pre-Medicine student at the University of Iowa. She grew up in a yellow house on a 10-acre horse farm in small-town Iowa – a place that was filled with so much love and so much loss. Her literacy teacher in the seventh grade was the first person to inspire Sofia to write, in which she continued to do so for her high school and college newspapers. She accredits her accomplishments to her family, particularly her mom, who is the epitome of strength and resilience.