Georgetown Mother and Son Fold 248 Paper Butterflies to Honor Local COVID-19 Victims

A 10-year-old boy and his mother have turned a year of grief into a memorial for the Georgetown residents who died of COVID-19. Ben and Donna Looper folded 248 origami butterflies, one for each person lost in the city, and the collection is now on public view in a downtown bookshop.

"You fold it in half, and then you fold it and make like a tiny little square," Ben described of the process. He said his mother wanted to create something that showed people how COVID had affected lives.

The count stopped at 248 because of a change in how the data was reported. Donna Looper said the pair ceased folding in May, when the county stopped tallying deaths by city. She said she believes more people have died since then.

The loss was also personal for the family. Ben's grandfather, Larry Brisky, contracted COVID in 2020, just four months after moving into a nursing home, and died shortly afterward. His uncle, Jimmy Godsey, caught the virus last Christmas and died in January.

The project grew out of Donna Looper's earlier career. She once worked as a child life specialist at Dell Children's Medical Center in Austin and at Baylor Scott and White in Temple, helping children and families cope with hospitalization and illness. She said she knew her son would not simply sit and talk about his feelings, so she wanted something to occupy his hands during conversation. That, she said, led to the butterflies.

Each day after school, the two checked the number of COVID-19 deaths in Georgetown to learn how many more butterflies were needed. Keeping pace grew harder after the delta and omicron variants emerged, Looper said, with so many deaths occurring daily. "There were some moments where Ben didn't really feel into it, but we stuck to it," she said. "It was a really therapeutic thing for both of us."

For months the finished butterflies stayed in a box at the family's home. They now hang from the ceiling of Lark & Owl Booksellers, an independent store on West Sixth Street in downtown Georgetown. The installation, called "The Butterfly Project," serves as a memorial, and a nearby space lets visitors fold their own butterflies for loved ones they have lost.

Rachael Jonrowe, one of the bookstore's owners, said the display counters the notion that the pandemic is over or never happened. "I think we should be honest with ourselves and this is a space where we value honesty," she said. She added that she hopes the shop can fill a gap in support, saying that in America generally and Williamson County in particular, people lack enough opportunities to acknowledge the trauma they suffered and the resources to begin healing.

Ben said he was pleased to see the finished work on display. "It's fun to actually see it," he said. "It looks really cool." The Butterfly Project remains at Lark & Owl Booksellers through the end of the year.