A Lesson Learned

I am an avid lover of animals and have always wanted to encourage and develop the same in my ten year old daughter. I remember a day at the pool last year and wanted to share it.

We were swimming in June in the afternoon and my daughter noticed a bee in the water floating. She had thought it was a yellow jacket and we looked closer and it was moving very faintly. She is a bit frightened of yellow jackets as they are a bit more unpredictable. I assured her it was not a yellow jacket and we moved closer. My father had kept bees as a boy and I have always felt an affinity towards the three striped honey bee. I urged my daughter to quickly grab something for me to save her with. A blue pool noodle provided the life line of hope for this creature.

We laid her on the dry concrete deck under the life guard station and watched her. Slowly she moved trying to dry her wings and warm herself in the sun. A second bee flew over and landed close to her touching her with it's mouth and legs. Our straggler started to pump it's wings trying to dry itself. After a few minutes the new arrival flew off across the pool and our survivor lifted off slowly and shakily followed.

I took the time to reflect on this for a short while with my daughter. I don't know if she will remember this experience as an adult, but I will for a long time. This would be the equivalent of a human drowning in the middle of the ocean with no land in sight when an unseen force lifts us out of the water and sets us on dry land. We would then have to travel back over that same ocean before we rejoined our loved ones.

It's a comforting thought that bees communicate by dancing and makes me wonder what story this lucky little one will share with her kin.

The lesson I passed on to my daughter that day was, there is no random act of kindness that is too small to make a difference in somebody's life.

sft...