Near the end of summer each year, countless monarch butterflies leave their seasonal breeding grounds in Canada to escape the coming cold. From there, they migrate to the warmer climate of Mexico. Butterfly-lover Debbie Tonner knows this cycle well.

That’s why, when she spotted a struggling butterfly still lingering outside her home in Canada late last August, she knew something was amiss.

“We noticed her fluttering around in the grass,” Tonner told The Dodo. “She seemed unable to fly. I put her on a flower in the garden. She fluttered around and flew a few feet. Then she would fall to the ground. She would climb back up the flower stem and repeat this fluttering.”

At night, Tonner decided to bring the butterfly inside rather than leave her defenseless outdoors.

“The next day, I put her on the flower and she repeated this pattern [of not being able to fly],” Tonner said. “We continued to put her out every fair weather day. Always with the same result.”

It became clear that this butterfly wouldn’t be able to join her kind on their journey south. But in place of that trek, the butterfly got something few like her ever do — she got a name.

Tonner named her Terra.

Butterflies like Terra aren’t equipped to survive the wintery weather of Canada. But thankfully, in Tonner, Terra had found a friend.

“Eventually, it got too cold for her to go outside anymore,” Tonner said. “We brought her inside for good at this point.”

Tonner and her family made a cozy enclosure for Terra, a warm safe place for her to escape the harsh weather brewing just outside.

In the months that followed, at home together, Terra became more than just an unlikely friend to Tonner.

“She is part of our family,” Tonner said at the time. “She has joined our family for Thanksgiving supper, Christmas supper and Easter supper!”

Terra had it good.

Chances are, by late winter, Terra was the only wild-born butterfly for hundreds of miles around. Yet she was never lonely.

Tonner noticed that Terra would light up whenever a loved one got close, fluttering her wings in excitement.

Thanks to the warmth of love, Terra had survived the winter long enough to see the spring. Months after Tonner took the butterfly in, it was finally warm enough again to take her back outside.

For the first time in the better part of a year, Terra felt the sunshine on her wings again.

“It was very special to see her feel the sun outside. She stretched her wings and soaked up the warmth,” Tonner said. “It touched my heart!”

Had Terra not been found last summer, she likely would not have survived more than few days in the wild. But thanks to Tonner, she’d defied the odds — living a full life with no shortage of love.

However, Terra’s story couldn’t go on forever.

Seven months after Tonner adopted her, Terra passed away from old age.

The world is a brighter place because of butterflies like Terra. And Tonner’s life is brighter for having loved her.

Terra will always have a place in her heart.

“We burried her in our butterfly garden with a painted stone for a marker,” Tonner said. “[My family] and I shed a few tears for our beautiful girl, who has been with us so long.”