I shifted into park and breathed a word of thanks to heaven that my old truck carried my heavy burden once again. I glanced at misty sky, thankful for my wide felt brim then impatiently toward the office of the recycling center for the help of a front end loader. Lunch time! No help for a while...
Nothing is more fun than hand wrestling wet rotten logs off a flat bed trailer by yourself. Not that I was having much fun. With no paying work, we cleared the lot of logs that never found their usefulness. January is often slow, but this year was ominous. A ruptured appendix sidelined me for two early profitable summer months. Writhing in the hospital while doctors focused for a day on an apparently healthy gall bladder, I went septic and nearly died. Time blurred in despair and fear. I asked my wife who she was, and if we were married. I preached to one nurse, and cursed the next. The most incredible poetry filled my mind, but my pen was a hallucination. My oldest son kept the crew together and did his best to find jobs until I could hobble around with pillow clutched stomach leading with only words. I juggled the few dollars to slow the finiancial hemmorrhage, few breaks coming my way, proclaiming, "I'm coming back, stronger than ever!" "This is the best Christmas ever," my wife told our children. "Your father is still here."
Climbing on to the trailer, I spied something tiny and pink on the top of the load. Tiny! I picked it up gently and held it up. A baby... something.
How did it get to the top of the pile on such flimsy legs? Its filament tail quivered as it strained in the manner of a new puppy first held in human hands. The tractor or logs might have crushed it. It must be freezing from the wild ride down the road...
Something else I could do nothing about...
I'd rehabed baby animals, owls, bats, squirrels, flying squirrels, racoons, from the trees my tree service cut; but never anything this small. I couldn't bring myself to execute an obvious sentence of doom on such a bundle of life. I pulled up my sweatshirt and dropped him into my pocket thinking, "At least I can give you a warm place, and small comfort..."
As I leaned into the first log, I had the memory of hearing, "That is how I feel about you. I want to keep you closer to my heart." God was speaking in that still small voice. I savored the communion and wept in the rain, grateful I was alone. God was sending a message in the form of a baby. Would I get the lesson right? As I worked and he warmed up I could feel his stirrings as he climbed to the top of my pocket. The last load on the dump truck was too late for the center so I took it to the woods to make new soil and wandered the bluffs above my favorite creek. The fading sun lit the burgundy white oaks and golden sugar maples and traced the needles of the loblolly pine. I looked skyward for faint song of geese in the clouds before realizing it was the mouse in my pocket singing. Or crying. I plucked him up, studying his pinkness not too different from my fingers. Is it this beautiful to God when our hearts sing to him in adversity? I had no answer for a little mouse prayer in the darkening forest.
My wife rose from the couch to see in my pocket. "How tiny! Surely you don't- Ben, I have no spare time..." "Just mix the milk. I want to try." Maybe the lesson was to try the impossible. At least it was Friday, and I would have the weekend. Armed with Q-tips, syringe and a magnifying glass, I tried and failed to see lips. "Daddy, it says in my book a baby mouse is the size of a jelly bean." "That would be about right, sweets. Don't get to attached. I'm not even sure I'm getting milk in him."
Her sobs from the bedroom late that night made me wonder if it was cruel to expose her to grim realities.
Saturday morning the jelly bean squirmed on the top of his nest of coton balls placed in a votive candle holder on the heating floor vent. As I struggled to feed him, I wondered how many times God placed the very thing I needed at my fingertips and I couldn't or wouldn't bring it in to my soul. Don't we all? When he climbed out of my pocket, I would try feeding some more. "It is so sweet to see you tender with him," My wife observed.
Sunday morning, he lay still as a whisper. "Does not two sparrows sell in the market for a penny? And not one falls to the ground that your heavenly father doesn't know it." It was the best I could do for a little mouse eulogy, my last act of kindness.
All through our fleeting lives God is declaring his love for us. We have to learn to hear his whispers. He wants us to love each other, and to be kind. Sometimes even to a mouse.
Author notes
These are true events of January, 2004
My dream car is a extra cab chevrolet pick up '99; tricked out with sound system and a sun roof.
A contest entry
- Short stories/Poems!!... Subject: L O V E!! PREWRITES ALLOWED!! :D by Lady Michaella.
425 points, ended October 2, 2008, 15 entries
Honorable mention
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest - share yourself with me by willdabeast.
1000 points, ended May 10, 17 entries
Bronze trophy winner
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest - Short Stories by LullabyOfADeadMan.
400 points, ended September 1, 40 entries
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
What symbolism do you see...
Comments
1 - 24 of 24
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I found this circa a comment you made on someone else's poem; this is absolutely fabulous and a wonderful story -- this should be in a storybook, or even Reader's Digest! It has the most tension, depression, almost despair, and then redemption, in the form of a mouse, the smallest possible message to your soul, and you were wise enough to recognize it. Just lovely, and heart-warming, and of course, written so excellently. Worth all the shiny things, and much more. Bookmarked!
Lita
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Fabulous write. Thank you so much for entering it into my contest and I'm so sorry for not being able to judge it sooner. please forgive me.
~~Tay. -
Life
It's called living, things happen we either deal with them or they deal with us.
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i'm not much of a religious nor spiritual person but life's lesson also seem the most subtle.
i like your style it flows it doesn't stumble over its own wordiness nor starve the reader/s in its sparsity. it fills one like a juicy hamburger.
i hope that your life has seen much improvement and further blessing.
peace
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Symbolism in this for me is our Creator loves all he has created and everything has a purpose in his design plan.Hard thing to remember at every moment. But take one element out of the picture. And balance is disrupted.Chaotic as it seems,it's true. Not to mention he knew your heart as one that couldn't allow it to go uncared for. So you were the one chosen to find him. No one nor nothing should parish cold and alone unloved.Least of all innocence.This was a compassionate story.
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Wonderful!
Interesting form...but I love the story! Congrats on the win!
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This is a beautiful story, even more so being a true one. You are a goos storyteller and your message has been taken to heart.
Thank you for sharing this piece of you with us.
All the best
Sue
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A lovely story, that read straight to my heart. The small voice speaks often, and gives guidance, showing ways to love.
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Oh wow!
I definitely thought about Jesus picking up the baby lamb that had wandered away and put him in His pocket next to His strong chest comforting, loving. What a great story! At least you tried. I just had a similar experience a few days ago with a sick butterfly that was colored like Bambi. I named him Bambi, he died and I buried him in a Marlboro box and buried him under a pine tree. God sees your love. Congratulations on your trophy.
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I see a Christian with his heart open to God.Why ruin the true story with asking me to disect it . Just let me enjoy. Which I did thank you so much.
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bookmarked...
my God, this is good,
and the message...well,
it's what i needed.
love, lane
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Success is not the point - obedience is. If there ever was a Christian tale that summed up karma (contradiction in terms) this is it. It had me from "Hello" and held me until "goodbye" - what more can a writer ask.
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One of my favorite comments ever. Someday, explain Karma (contradiction in terms) to me...
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Heart warming story honey, well told. Great job! sj
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great story. sad. reminds me of the time my father found a solitary egg and tryed to save a baby bird. it didn't make it either, but i will never forget him holding that tiny bird in his strong hands trying to gently massage it and warm it.
once my father saved a baby chicken from being pecked to death by its mother. he brought it in and my little sister and i (neither one of us could stand chickens at the time!) decided to become its foster mothers. i would walk around with that chick on my shoulder and it would snuggle in my hair. at night it slept in a hamster cage beside my sister's bed. although she would warm up a "nest" (fabric inside a piece of a hamster tunnel) for it with a blowdryer every night, it would (by her interpretation) cry for its mother until she put her hand in there with it. then it would be still and quiet. so every night my sister laid uncomfortably with her arm draped over the top and into this hamster cage with her hand touching this little chicken. i just thought that was the sweetest thing anyone could do for anyone but especially for a creature most might consider inconsequential. it eventually grew big enough and strong enough to rejoin the other chickens. then we ate it... No! i'm kidding about the eating it part - the rest is true. (for the record we never ate any of the chickens we owned - and i went on to become a vegetarian after that.)- Nangaleema -
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I never thanked you for this
thank you for telling me your story...
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I have to admit I was a little ticked off recieving such a lengthy message from a stranger but I have to say I was really glad I read this. I'm not religious, far from it in fact, but the messages of kindness and the frailty of life were kinda really compelling. You did a great job and best of wishes in the contes.
p.s. when you're in the hospital it's "a hallucination" not "an hallucination."
-cheers
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How precious a story ...
which had me in tears and which taught me more about you AND God! Often we are only a shiver against His Heart, held in the pocket of His Love ... and we cannot even take in the milk food He offers us ... and yet ... and yet ...
Please let me ramble:
I once cared for a little kraal-ogie ("bead eye") that the cat brought into my bedroom, feeding it every two hours, some thinned Pro-Nutro and later mixed with finely mashed apple ... Right through the days and nights, taking it with me even downtown and on all of my working trips and often it slept under my clothing near my heart .... It was my tiny reminder of love and of life, forever calling for my attention, with impatient, sharp, nonstop chirps, until it was ready to fly ... And JUST when I was about to free it into the waiting skies, my phone rang, and I, running to answer the phone (for I was waiting for an important call, as my daughter was seriously ill), dropped the little bird and stepped on it ... Imagine my sorrow and my mourning! A friend later said, trying to comfort me: The bird was dead already when it fell from the sky ... But I knew: for a short while I was the incubator, the protector, the mother, who had to keep it alive ... Teaching me to stay focused at all times and to not take my eyes from those who are given in my care ... To stay true and aware in the most trying of circumstances ... To know even in great love, one can make a mistake and hurt those who are given in one's care ...
Thank you so much for your lovely story. It touched my mother heart.
Love
Myra
Ps. A few spelling errors, like despair, hallucination, hemorrhage etc, but I shall edit before I publish this ...
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Your comment had me in tears. Birds are very hard to raise. Maa tells a story of raising 3 chikadee looking birds, and one that she had raised before, taught them to fly...
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The best lessons are invariably the ones we learn for ourselves, the hard way. He knows wht we need, we just need to be open to them, as you so well said here.
Thanks for the link to this.
Buddy
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My brother raised a squirrel that was very tiny and pink when he found it. My father showed him how to feed it and mix the formula and told him best of luck the odds were against him. The squirrel ended up living fat and happy and full grown in the back yard.
I love the story. Not for the creature, not for all the insults to the integrity of the body, but for listening to the small still voice inside. When we live a God centered life it isn't about being holy, only available. You show this so well. Thank you.
A Friend,
Tom B.
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You are a wonderful man
I am not sure I would have been as caring. I have about 200 head and they take a great deal of time. I am sure I would not have been able to fit the mouse in there.
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Beautiful story. The lines were dodgy though, i said 2-6 pages on a Microsoft word document, and it was only 1 1/4.. which annoys me. Besides that, this story is beautiful. The symbolism is great and the story is lively. It has a lot romantic features, which I like, eg the celebration of God in nature.. that sort of stuff. Brilliant story, and shows many different kinds of love that most people cant identify. Thanks for entering!
-RoseDaughter- -
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Please don't be annoyed...
It is as long as it takes to tell!
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