FOODFORTHOUGHT

THE WATER

Author Unknown

October 27, 2012

It was one of the hottest days of the dry season. We had not seen rain in
almost a month. The crops were dying. Cows had stopped giving milk. The
creeks and streams were long gone back into the earth. It was a dry season
that would bankrupt several farmers before it was through. Every day, my
husband and his brothers would go about the arduous process of trying to get
water to the fields. Lately this process had involved taking a truck to the
local water rendering plant and filling it up with water. But severe
rationing had cut everyone off. If we didn't see some rain soon...we would
lose everything. It was on this day that I learned the true lesson of
sharing and witnessed the only miracle I have seen with my own eyes. I was
in the kitchen making lunch for my husband and his brothers when I saw my
six-year old son, Billy, walking toward the woods. He wasn't walking with
the usual carefree abandon of a youth but with a serious purpose. I could
only see his back. He was obviously walking with a great effort...trying to
be as still as possible. Minutes after he disappeared into the woods, he
came running out again, toward the house. I went back to making sandwiches;
thinking that whatever task he had been doing was completed. Moments later,
however, he was once again walking in that slow purposeful stride toward the
woods.

This activity went on for an hour: walk carefully to the woods, run back to
the house. Finally I couldn't take it any longer and I crept out of the
house and followed him on his journey (being very careful not to be
seen...as he was obviously doing important work and didn't need his Mommy
checking up on him). He was cupping both hands in front of him as he
walked; being very careful not to spill the water he held in them...maybe
two or three tablespoons were held in his tiny hands. I sneaked close as he
went into the woods. Branches and thorns slapped his little face but he did
not try to avoid them. He had a much higher purpose. As I leaned in to spy
on him, I saw the most amazing site. Several large deer loomed in front of
him. Billy walked right up to them. I almost screamed for him to get away.
A huge buck with elaborate antlers was dangerously close. But the buck did
not threaten him...he didn't even move as Billy knelt down. And I saw a
tiny fawn laying on the ground, obviously suffering from dehydration and
heat exhaustion, lift its head with great effort to lap up the water cupped
in my beautiful boy's hand.

When the water was gone, Billy jumped up to run back to the house and I hid
behind a tree. I followed him back to the house; to a spigot that we had
shut off the water to. Billy opened it all the way up and a small trickle
began to creep out. He knelt there, letting the drip, drip slowly fill up
his makeshift "cup," as the sun beat down on his little back. And it came
clear to me. The trouble he had gotten into for playing with the hose the
week before. The lecture he had received about the importance of not
wasting water. The reason he didn't ask me to help him.

It took almost twenty minutes for the drops to fill his hands. When he
stood up and began the trek back, I was there in front of him. His little
eyes just filled with tears. "I'm not wasting," was all he said. As he
began his walk, I joined him...with a small pot of water from the kitchen.
I let him tend to the fawn. I stayed away. It was his job. I stood on the
edge of the woods watching the most beautiful heart I have ever known
working so hard to save another life. As the tears that rolled down my face
began to hit the ground, they were suddenly joined by other drops...and more
drops...and more. I looked up at the sky. It was as if God, himself, was
weeping with pride. Some will probably say that this was all just a huge
coincidence. That miracles don't really exist. That it was bound to rain
sometime. And I can't argue with that...I'm not going to try. All I can
say is that the rain that came that day saved our farm...just like that
actions of one little boy saved another.