Misdiagnosed chronic illness is a reality for far too many people—especially women—who are dismissed, unheard, and left searching for answers. Milkweed Heart is a modern fairy tale by author Kelly Moyer that captures the emotional toll of being misunderstood by the medical system and the journey toward self-advocacy. Through poetic storytelling, it explores resilience, the healing power of nature, and the profound value of every individual’s experience. If you've ever felt lost in the maze of misdiagnosis, this story offers both reflection and hope.
Once upon a time, in a small city located on an isthmus, there was a woman known for her kind heart and free spirit, who was beloved by the monarchs. Not royalty, mind you, for the woman had a distinct problem with authority, but a very special type of flutterby that lived, not long, but in accordance with its nature.
Each morning, as she awakened, the woman would notice the flutterbies at her bedroom window.
“Well, hello, friends!” she would say as she sat up and stretched. “Give me a moment to get my coffee.”
She would then rise, straightening the hem of her nightie, and make her way to the kitchen, where she poured her coffee into a cup nearly as big as her heart. With her notebook and fountain pen in one hand and her coffee in the other, she elbowed the door open and stepped out onto the patio, where the flutterbies busily nectared on the wildflowers that filled every inch of her backyard.
Together, the woman and the flutterbies whiled away the early hours of the day, reciting the verse of Mary Oliver and penning little poems of their own.
Once the woman had showered and dressed, she laced up her walking shoes and met the flutterbies back outside. (Time and again, she had asked them into her little bungalow, but the flutterbies always declined the invitation, stating that they preferred the freedom to be found amid wide skies and dew-kissed grasses.) As they made their way along the walking path, lined with goldenrod, aster and thistle, the flutterbies would continue to nectar each time she stopped to pick up litter or tie a little poem to a low branch on one of the many mulberry trees.
Frequently, a flutterby with eyes on his wings would fall in love with a flutterby who had no eyes except for the ones on her face; and, the woman would smile as she watched them rise and dance together beneath the summer sun. Not long after, the flutterby with no eyes on her wings would land upon the woman’s shoulder and whisper into her ear that she was with child.
When it was time, the expecting flutterby dallied along the path, searching for the perfect milkweed leaves beneath which to lay her eggs. As the eggs hatched a few days later, the woman welcomed each teeny-tiny caterpillar into the world with a poem and a smile.
Oh, how she loved to watch those cats grow! Though they started out so very small, they quickly grew fat as they munched the tender leaves of the milkweed. She often let them ride on her body, which they enjoyed so much that they would often hang their chrysalis from her earlobes or her elbows, anywhere they could dangle freely and yet remain close to her.
When they eclosed, the flutterbies flitting about her would stir up a breeze as the new adults clung tightly until their wings dried and were prepared for flight. Once the newbies were ready to try out those wings, the woman and the other flutterbies would all cheer as they soared toward the treetops so as to get a first glimpse of the world from way up high.
Several months later, when the wildflowers again began to bloom, a new generation of flutterbies came to visit the woman’s grave, as they had heard her story from their ancestors. Since Mother Nature would have it no other way, there was a tiny sprout of milkweed, rising from the ground at the spot where her heart resided six feet under.
As the summer unfolded, that small sprout grew into a stalk, adorned with wide green leaves; and, on the underside of those leaves, the flutterbies laid their eggs, which hatched into caterpillars that grew fat as they chewed their way through the tenderest parts of the plant.
All the while, from the earliest days of summer on into the fall, generation after generation of flutterbies, striking in their vibrant oranges, blacks and browns, danced about the stalk, which, in the winter, lay fallow, yet sprouted each spring until the very end of time.
