Butterflies at wedding moved bride to tears. Soon strangers were weeping too.

On the first anniversary of her father’s death, a monarch butterfly landed on Amy Rose Perry. Since then, she has seen butterflies as a symbol of her late father. “Whenever it’s an important day, like his birthday or Father’s Day, we always see a butterfly,” said Perry, 32.

“I always believed in signs, and I believed that our loved ones were still with us and watching over us.” Her father, Nathaniel Machain, died after a three-year battle with appendix cancer in 1999. He was 36, and she was 7.

“It took me a long time to process that grief,” said Perry, the eldest of Machain’s two daughters. “His passing at such a young age has given me a lot of perspective on how I live my life.”.