If you look closely at this picture of my daughter you’ll see that she’s crouching down, smiling, at a bee she pulled out of a pool. (Which as a former and aspiring beekeeper makes my heart happy). I could dedicate an entire post to bees. I won’t, but I will share a couple of things that contribute to my fascination with them (and my daughter).
Bees are small and yet powerful. Without them, we don’t eat. Kind of a big deal. So there’s that.
Also, if you look inside a hive and get to know our bee friends you’ll learn that they have a system, a way of relating to and beeing (see what I did there with the spelling?) with each other that sets the whole hive up to flourish. So there’s also that.
When my daughter saw this bee floating in the pool she went into action, fished it out, set it on the cement concerned -“Is it going to die, mom?! I shared with her that bees can’t fly when their wings are wet (another fun fact, they don’t fly in the rain as a result).
I went on about my business not sure if the bee would make it or not. Some time goes by and my daughter announces that she’s put a few drops of honey out for the bee and it’s actually slurping it up (this was a big deal, full of jumping up and down, big smiles, a few giggles) and of course I’m invited to check it out. I do (also jump up and down) snap the picture and I notice the bee’s wings doing their best to do what they do with no success. But they are moving. I’m gaining hope in full bee recovery at this point even though the only place it’s going is in circles on the warm cement.
Wanna know what my daughter did? She took that red pool ring you see in the background and she placed it around the bee so no one would step on it and then she sat there beside it. Dangled her feet by the side of the pool and waited. She waited.
Maybe waiting doesn’t seem like a huge deal but my daughter is 9 and she’s not known in our family as the patient one much less the one who sits still...ever. She’s always on the move, usually practicing handstands, flipping over furniture, or experimenting with something in our kitchen. This is the girl who waited.
And then it happened, “Mommy the bee flew away! It flew away!”
We celebrated, we cheered, we hugged. I told her how proud I was of her.
It seemed so simple to her; my 9-year-old, busy little daughter to care for this bug (and hey, if we’re honest it’s probaly not on your ‘Top 10 List of Favorite Flying Insects’). She nourished it, protected it, kept watch over it and gave it space and time to heal.
I imagine those minutes must have felt like days and days to her; maybe even as many as 14, maybe more. And yet, she did it.