350 monarchs released at funeral for slain 16-year-old

[Paul Cherubini]

Hundreds attend funeral services for Molly Bish
By Peter Demarco, Boston Globe Correspondent, 8/3/2003

WORCESTER -- Bishop Daniel Reilly began Molly Anne Bish's funeral
service yesterday by putting into words what thousands who have followed
her tragic story have come to know in their hearts.

Molly Bish, a blue-eyed, blond, 16-year-old who loved clothes and
sports, was remembered in readings and prayers as a young girl who had a
strong belief in God, a zest for life, who loved others, and whose spirit
had endured in all she touched.

Later in the afternoon, at Molly's gravesite at Saint Paul Cemetery in
Warren, several hundred yards from Comins Pond where she disappeared
on June 27, 2000, her family again shed tears. But they did not last.

One by one, dozens of Molly's friends and her entire family were
handed tiny boxes. ''To Molly!'' Magdalen Bish announced.

The lids were opened, and hundreds and hundreds of Monarch butterflies
flew into the air, fluttering into the nearby pine trees. Some landed on
people's arms and hair, igniting instant smiles and small gasps of joy.

The butterflies, more than 350 of them, were donated from across the
country through the International Butterfly Breeders Association's ''Wings
of Hope'' program. But Magdalen Bish gave someone else credit for the
light-hearted moment.

''Just like Molly. She made us all smile one more time,'' she said.

Afterward, as Molly Bish was buried alongside her grandmother,
thousands of colorful paper cranes, created by children and sent to the Bish
family while their daughter was missing, were laid with her cherry-red
casket, just as in the story, ''Sadako and the 1,000 Paper Cranes.''

Molly Bish's remains were discovered in June in a wooded area in
Palmer and identified on June 9. Her killer has not been found.

 
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