MARILEN ABESAMIS
Last week, we discovered an army of bees beneath the tool shed in my neighbor’s backyard. The shed leaned into my fence so I knew the bees were also hovering near me.
To me, the bees are a blessing and made my three-year-old mango tree flower so exuberantly and to spring leaves upon green leaves so that even the branches are now lying so low they touch the ground.
I know it usually takes five years for a mango tree to mature and bear fruit, but thanks to the bees, they coaxed the flowers and sang around them until a score of plump golden mangoes gently fell from the tree.
I talk to the bees and thank them for the wonderful work they do. But our neighbor behaved otherwise and sprayed chemicals on the bees. The little things buzzed around me as I was watering the hibiscus and that’s when I learned that he had invaded their quarters.
Oh, how I feel for the Queen! So I lit a candle in a sincere apology to the bees. As well as to the mango tree.
My mango tree has stopped dancing in the wind and the green bursts no longer. The whole yard smells of sadness, of loneliness. I realized how each fruiting and flowering tree is dependent on the grace of small things that God has made. We cannot long survive without the love of nonhumans around us and how we need to love them in return!
Marilen thank you for making me realize that all of God’s creation are basically good. It’s how one’s perception can make something productive and beautiful.
Len, you have always had the inner vision to see what is unseen to many of us and the tender heart to empathize with whoever or whatever is taken advantage of. It has been my privilege to have been your teacher in high school but your student in life.
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