--
Susan, every other Sunday
Murder
is everywhere, but today I’d like to
offer a story that proves that hope is, too.
The
story of Weeble.
Weeble, the night he joined the reef. |
In
December 2014, I purchased four baby seahorses from a breeder in Florida (I
don’t like taking them from the wild). Three arrived in good condition but one
had an infection in his tail.
The
sick little guy spent several weeks in a curled, miserable state on the bottom
of a hospital tank. The last half-inch of his tail (the part seahorses use to
grip and hang on to things) fell completely off, leaving the bone exposed.
Normally, once a fish assumes "the position"...well, it's bad. |
He
couldn't swim upright, and barely ate, and I accepted the inevitable…
...but
this little seahorse didn't get the memo.
One
Friday evening about a month into the little seahorse’s ordeal, my son came
home from college for the weekend and asked for an update. When I told him the
seahorse was still alive, he asked what I’d named it. I told him I wasn't planning
to name it because I didn't want to get attached.
My
son asked me if that was really fair.
"He's
fought so hard," he said, "and he's so small. If he dies, and his
life consists of nothing but this struggle, is it fair that he never even got
to have a name?"
***
The
following morning, my son asked "How's Weeble doing?"
It
took me a minute to make the connection. "You named the seahorse Weeble?"
He
smiled. "Exactly. Because he wobbles, but he won't fall down."
Miraculous
as it seems, the minute Weeble got a name he started to recover. He started
sitting vertically. His tail healed. (He'll
never re-grow the part he lost, but he figured out how to use his stump of a
tail to make a reasonably solid hitch.) Two weeks later, I put him into the
reef, and the other seahorses gathered around him to welcome him into the herd.
Weeble (front) and Magellan (who also has special needs--but that's a story for another day) |
Fourteen
months later, Weeble remains a healthy, happy seahorse, and has no idea he's
different from the others in any way.
Stumpy tail, but determined attitude. |
Wherein
lies a lesson: Sometimes, the lion’s share of success (or the seahorse’s, as
the case may be) is simply refusing to accept the odds.
WHO's not going to make it? |
But
sometimes, all it takes is the refusal to surrender and the determination to
manage one more meal, one more day, and little by little your strength returns
until you’re swimming along with strength you never knew you had.
Amen, Susan, amen!
ReplyDeleteThank you!
DeleteHaving been down in the dumps myself, I can tell you this: a critical part of the "will to live" is to have friends who will take care of you, cheer you on, and celebrate your winning the survival game! Hooray for Weeble. And KUDOS to you and the Junior for nursing him back to health.
ReplyDeleteI'm so sorry you've been down. It was wonderful to see you in Phoenix--I can't WAIT to see you again in October too.
DeleteFriends are absolutely critical to success and determination. In fact, I used Weeble as an example of that in a keynote I gave last September to a group that has been my "herd" and helped support me until my novels found an agent and a publisher. Friends are the best. :)
WEEBLE FOR PRESIDENT! Nah, with all he's been though he deserves better.
ReplyDeleteAt least if Weeble ran for President, then we'd all have a horse in this race.
DeleteLOL Jeff - and Everett. Way to set that one up and spike it home. And I agree, Jeff--the poor little horse has been though enough already.
ReplyDeleteOH wee Weeble!! I feel a children's story coming on about a Harry the Hairy Haggis and Wee Weeble the Sea Horse.
ReplyDeleteI'm never surprised by an animal's fight to survive though, never.
I'm actually working on a children's book about another of my seahorses, called "Magellan's Journey" -- but Wee Weeble actually piques my interest. Might have to make that happen.
DeleteAlso...somewhere, I have a stuffed haggis from a trip to Scotland when I was 11. His name tag reads "Wee Jimmie."