Young Girl Scout’s impact still being felt

Dragonflies have taken on a new meaning for the girls in Troop 670 as they have dealt with the death of Isabelle Meyer, the young scout killed by a falling tree at Camp Koch earlier this year.

The girls in her troop now sport dragonfly patches with the words “With love, Isabelle” in honor of their fallen friend. 

Angie Phillips, co-leader of Girl Scout Troop 670, has a new dragonfly tattoo on her forearm near one she has in remembrance of her grandfather.

“It’s so I can always see it,” she explained.

Several girls were also wearing necklaces with a pendant and dragonfly. Angie and her fellow co-leader, Jayme Buechler, purchased them for the girls. The pendants read, “With brave wings, she flies,” and have an engraved dragonfly on them.

The dragonfly comes from a story the leaders used to explain to their girls why they wouldn’t be seeing Isabelle anymore after she was killed by a falling tree at Camp Koch earlier this year.

The day after it happened, Jayme and Angie gathered their group together with a counselor from Memorial Hospital to share the sad news and discuss what had happened.

During the meeting, Melissa Ruschau, a girl scout leader for another troop, shared the story of the dragonfly.

Here’s the story:

At the bottom of an old pond lived some grubs who could not understand why none of their group ever came back after crawling up the lily stems to the top of the water. They promised each other that the next one who was called to make the upward climb would return and tell what had happened to him. Soon one of them felt an urgent impulse to seek the surface; he rested himself on the top of a lily pad and went through a glorious transformation, which made him a dragonfly with beautiful wings. In vain he tried to keep his promise. Flying back and forth over the pond, he peered down at his friends below. Then he realized that even if they could see him, they would not recognize such a radiant creature as one of their number. The fact that we cannot see our friends or communicate with them after the transformation which we call death is no proof that they cease to exist.” Walter Dudley Cavert, Remember Now

It was a difficult moment, but dragonflies began to make appearances in the lives of the girls and leaders. While the leaders were meeting with the group that day sharing the dragonfly story, the counselor from Memorial handed out notebooks for the girls to use for journaling. The notebooks had dragonflies on their covers. 

Then, when Jayme went to meet with Cindy Meyer, Isabelle’s grandmother, she saw a single dragonfly in her yard as she walked up to the porch.

“They just started appearing everywhere,” Jayme said.

When the troop gathered in August at Isabelle’s graveside in honor of her birthday, dragonflies flew all around them.

The story helps with the healing process, but there are still tears.

In honor of Isabelle, Jayme and Angie decided they would like to create two benches — one for Camp Carnes and one for Camp Koch — made from recycled bottle caps. With the impact of the quiet girl’s life on her family, fellow girl scouts and many others in the community, it didn’t take long for the troop to collect the needed and funding to have the benches created.

“We needed 400 pounds of caps — 200 for each bench,” Jayme explained. “One business gave us 200 pounds alone.”

Monday evening, Girl Scouts from Troop 670 and their sister troops gathered to begin sorting through the caps to clean them and ensure they were the correct plastic to be recycled. Jayme and Angie were sure they had more than the needed weight in caps and were considering creating a third bench.

Each bench costs about $300 to create, but even that expense has been covered. Nicole Sutherland, a seamstress in California who creates many of the patches worn by the Girl Scouts, created the special patch the troop wears in remembrance of Isabelle and donated $800 to help with the benches.

Isabelle’s grandmother said Isabelle loved being part of girl scouts. “I love what they are doing,” she said about the project. “She loved it (Girl Scouts). I am very honored they are doing this. It makes me feel proud.”

Isabelle was raised by Cindy and her husband, Stan, since she was one year old. August would have been Isabelle’s 12th birthday.

Cindy regularly helps with the Girl Scouts activities; that’s why one of the benches will be placed at Camp Karnes since they spent many campouts in the local park.

Dragonflies have taken on a new meaning for Cindy as well. “I received a lot of dragonflies as gifts. I love the story,” she said through tears. “It’s just so hard. She was a special girl.”

Isabelle’s sisters, Chloe Peters, 7, and Alana Meyer, 8, are also involved in the Girl Scouts. They helped weigh the caps after they were sorted and cleaned Monday evening. Each girl took turns stepping on a scale while a scout recorded the weight to keep track of the total.

After the caps are processed, they will be sent to the manufacturer in Evansville, Greentree Plastics, to create the benches. According to Jayme, the troops will plan a special day in the spring to place the new benches in the two camps.

It seems the benches are an appropriate way to honor the young Girl Scout remembered by her scout leaders as a quiet, contemplative girl who preferred to stand quietly aside from the group and just watch.