The scene outside Southwood Middle School on Thursday was solemn and moving -- and then came the butterfly.
Under a clear sky streaked with mottled clouds, Jorge and Maria Gough stepped onto the asphalt basketball court at the Palmetto Bay school where their teenage son was stabbed to death exactly one year ago.
Surrounded by a ring of hundreds of students swaying to the beat of a mournful hip-hop song, the couple and their young daughter, Brenda, lifted a veil from atop a white-woven basket and out fluttered dozens of butterflies.
Students cheered. Jorge Gough waved and flashed a weary but electric smile. Maria Gough, her eyes puffy and red, nuzzled her face under her husband's neck.
Then one lone butterfly perched atop her left shoulder.
In front of the onlookers, the butterfly remained as she walked back to the stage. As the family unwound in the principal's office afterward, the butterfly still hovered around the family.
''I can't explain it, the way how the butterfly stayed with us, first with the mom, then with Brenda, then myself,'' Jorge Gough said. ``It stayed with us -- and it's still with us. I look at it with love -- that he's OK.''
He was Jaime Gough, a 14-year-old eighth-grader who on Feb. 3, 2004, was found stabbed to death in an upstairs bathroom at Southwood Middle, which features an award-winning arts magnet program.
Another eight-grader, Michael Hernandez, is charged with first-degree murder and is awaiting trial. His attorney plans to use an insanity defense.
On Thursday, students held a ceremony, upbeat but tinged with sadness, to honor their fallen classmate.
The student body council made the ceremony the focus of ''Peace Week,'' in part to help erase the stigma that hung over the school in the months following Jaime's death.
And so hundreds of students -- some with peace symbols inked onto their forearms -- filed onto the blacktop Thursday morning. Officials from the Miami-Dade County school district and the village of Palmetto Bay chatted quietly under an intense morning sun.
Television news cameras lined up to the side of the stage, where the student council and the Goughs sat in small blue classroom chairs.
Television helicopters whirred overhead, nearly drowning out the Pledge of Allegiance.
Soon, they veered off into the sky.
''You guys have come through like the shining superstars that you are,'' principal Kristal Hickmon told the students, her voice cracking.
``You need to use what we have been through to make your lives and the people you affect better. If anybody can do that, this student body can do that.''
The Southwood chorus sang John Lennon's Imagine. A rabbi and a minister offered words of encouragement.
Then, the students eased away from the blacktop, forming a large, ragged circle around the basketball court.
An inner circle formed and students broke out their ''Chain of Promise'' -- hundreds of chain links fashioned from yellow paper, each one signed by students.
As Jaime's parents carried the basket full of butterflies to the center of the circle, rapper P. Diddy and R&B singer Faith Evans' song I'll Be Missing You blared over the loudspeakers:
'Thinkin' of the day when you went away. What a life to take, what a bond to break. I'll be missing you.''
Jaime loved Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and playing the violin and guitar, and going to Marlins baseball games.
He also loved butterflies -- and just before he died, he told his father why: They live a short time but they're beautiful and happy.
''Jaime hasn't gone,'' Maria Gough said as the ceremony concluded and the butterfly finally left her shoulder.
``He died, but his soul is still with us. He's living in another form.''
