Guy Gets The Most Magical Visit From A Little Butterfly

“She mentioned she’d be a yellow butterfly one day.”

Cole Shinsky lost his mom nine years ago, but one thing she said has always stuck with him.

“She mentioned she’d be a yellow butterfly one day,” Shinsky wrote on Twitter.

Shinsky, a left-handed college pitcher, has faced a number of struggles recently, from shoulder problems to potentially switching schools. He longed for someone to let him know that everything was going to be OK — someone like his mom.

Then, around Mother’s Day, an unexpected visitor arrived just when he needed her most.

Cole Shinsky pitching a college baseball game
Instagram/Cole Shinsky

“I was fishing off the dock at my aunt’s house and she started walking down to me with her hands cupped together,” Shinsky told The Dodo. “She said, ‘Guess who came to visit?’”

At first, Shinsky didn’t understand what his aunt was holding or why she had tears in her eyes.

His aunt opened her hands and there, on her palm, was a small yellow butterfly.

Yellow butterfly visits grieving pitcher
Twitter/Cole Shinsky

“The butterfly seemed perfectly content being held,” Shinsky said. “My aunt gently handed her to me.”

Shinsky wasn’t ready for the butterfly to fly away, so he slowly walked inside with the delicate creature perching on his hand.

“When I finally stopped moving, she worked her way up my arm and sat on my left shoulder for a few minutes before I walked outside again,” Shinsky said.

Yellow butterfly crawls up guy's pitching arm
Twitter/Cole Shinsky

Shinsky intensely felt the significance of the yellow butterfly crawling up his left arm, his pitching arm, and staying there.

He couldn’t believe she had come to him just when he needed her most. “This is incredible,” Shinsky wrote on Twitter. “For nine years I have been mesmerized every time I see one but I have never been close enough to touch one.”

In many cultures, seeing a butterfly has deeper meanings, and some consider a yellow butterfly to be a sign of guidance and hope — just what Shinsky needed most.

“I think she specifically came to visit because I am currently in the middle of looking for a different school and I've been having a rough time at college,” Shinsky said. “She was just letting me know that she is still here.”

Twitter/Cole Shinsky

When Shinsky walked back outside, the butterfly stayed with him a few minutes longer, then flew away.

It was a fleeting moment, but Shinsky has a plan for how he can make it last forever — a tattoo of two yellow butterflies looking over his left shoulder, he explained, “for my angels.”