Here is a little winter story for my grandkids. Their Moms can read it to them when they find it in the blog one day; hopefully it will make the time passing by during the COVID shutdown a little more fun and exciting.
Not to be selfish and to think a bit more globally; I will also share it with all, but especially my grands, as I just saw a photo of their last winter snowman beginning to melt away, and it reminded me of this little fellow I once knew named Sparky.
So here is Sparky’s story.
Enjoy:
A very deep, loud voice dropped down through the whistling air around the little snowflake:
“What makes you think you can do that?”
Sparky the Snowflake wasn’t quite sure who had spoken those very loud and excited words. He paused in mid-flurry to listen a bit closer.
“Huh?”
“Okay little fellow, I’ll say it again; but I DO hate repeating myself. Why do you think you can just blow right on by me without stopping to say hello?”
The sound seemed to be coming from the old birch tree that stood stark, naked and unashamed out in the field of the bleak winter landscape.
“Well Mr. Tree……..for one thing you are naked. Your leaves have all blown away and I’m not really very drawn to lodging upon your icy, cold branches for the evening.”
Sparky looked with pity upon the old tree to see if it’s feelings had been hurt by his harsh words. It must have been a stinging reality check for the tree to hear of his nakedness. The silly old tree HAD asked, after all and he was just answering back, but perhaps he could have given a softer, kinder answer.
Yet the tree stood tall in spite of Sparky’s words. He even looked proud of his situation.
“You will not be able to visit my majestic presence which usually bears people like you and allows them to lounge in the hollows of my amazing limbs.”
Sparky wondered what on earth had given this old tree such an amazing amount of confidence.
He would have asked the question out loud if he hadn’t been so afraid of hurting his feelings a second time.
However; it WAS cold and perhaps he COULD snuggle down into the limbs of the old tree for just one night.
Perhaps the tree really would not mind too much.
Sparky was suddenly feeling REALLY sleepy and thinking it might be nice to rest from the wind in the branches of the tree until morning.
“You wouldn’t be the first; you know?” said the tree in a deep gritty voice.
Sparky yawned. How had that tree read his thoughts?
“Good, then it is settled! I’m very tired of blowing around in this blizzard.”
He began to make his way over to the lower stronger branches of the old tree and then he climbed deep down into their protective coverings.
“Of course all the others who have rested here might have been a bit more important than you; since you are so very small and only one tiny little snowflake.”
“Hey! I’m important!”
“Really?” laughed the tree.
Sparky puffed out his sleepy chest and tried to show the tree that he mattered.
“The others who visited here were on their way to great missions though. You will only sleep until the sun comes up, then you will become a dripping puddle as you hit the ground where the others will pass right over you as they make their way to more important destinations. They will never even know that you ever existed.”
Sparky suddenly sprang awake, listening to that last comment of the tree with a new terror in his little heart.
He wondered if what the old tree was saying was really true.
Was the whole purpose of his existence nothing more than just to fall off this tree as he melted away and became a cold liquid puddle that merely watered the ground where people would come to walk beneath the tree?
Now he was too afraid to go to sleep.
He snuggled deeper into the caverns of the intersections of the tree’s branches hoping that tomorrow would not come.
Sparky tossed and turned and fretted and wondered if he should have stayed out there in the middle of the blizzard just blowing through the night air, aimless and restless and wondering.
What had made him stop and rest in this tree anyway?
He could not explain what it was that made him stop here; but he had done it now and it was too late to make a change.
Finally, when the weary day of traveling on the winds had gotten the best of him he succumbed to the sleepiness he had felt before and he closed his eyes; much against his will.
The tree was right!
The worst thing happened!
The next morning Sparky woke up just a puddle on the ground beneath the branches of the tree.
“Oh dear me!” he exclaimed; and the tree heard him and waved his branches at him like an old man pointing his finger in his face.
“I told you so!”
Sparky feel silent.
He didn’t even know if he could be called a snowflake anymore.
The little puddle that he was now looked up at the sun shining down from the sky bringing it’s warmth to all the land.
“This is all your fault!” he shouted at the sun.
“That lazy old sun just kept on shinning, he even seemed to be smiling, and Sparky thought he heard the sun begin to hum a song!”
This attitude of the sunshine really made Sparky mad!
How dare that sun hum a song as he lay in a drippy puddle on the ground!
“What gives you the right to sing while I’m being turned into a puddle of water on the ground, and all because of you! It is all your fault!”
“I sing because I’m happy!” said the sun.
“Unlike you; I know my purpose in the plan and I’ve done my part well!”
The sun smiled down at Sparky in such a matter of fact way that it made Sparky want to cry.
“What do you mean you’ve done your part? Your part in what? Your nothing but a mean old sun that goes around destroying little snowflakes. Shame on you!”
The sun laughed out loud at that remark and brightened it’s rays even more.
“Soon you will see!” he said and he moved on to let Sparky rest in the puddle underneath the tree.
About that time some very important dignitaries came by riding on camels and speaking wise words in whispers to one another.
They splashed right through the puddle that was Sparky, and kept right on going down the road.
The tree puffed up its trunk with pride and held up it’s branches and stood tall and dignified.
“I have just given shade to some very important dignitaries riding on camels as they passed through on their way to a very important city” he said to Sparky and all of the others who would listen.
Sparky just lay quietly in little ripples on the ground.
He guessed that old tree WAS very important after all.
The tree had a great purpose and he knew it.
Sparky was just a melted snowflake, a had-been that had made the way of the dignitaries a bit more difficult with his puddle.
The tree had given them shade and helped them to find out where they were and it even provided a temporary shade for them as they talked of important matters on their way.
Time went on and the soil beneath the puddle that was now Sparky became dry and thirsty.
Sparky could feel the ground sucking the life out of him as he disappeared down and down deeper into the soil.
“Hey! What do you think you are doing?” he yelled at the dirt. ” I am supposed to be a snowflake and now you are sucking me down into the soil. How am I supposed to ever survive that?”
“Quit complaining” said the dirt. “I know my purpose! I’m just fulfilling my part of the plan; that’s all. Quit your griping and moaning. You will be okay.”
It seemed that everyone and everything had a plan; except for Sparky.
Sparky didn’t FEEL okay.
He kept slipping deeper and deeper into the dirt and as he went down and down he felt his pieces separating and distributing out to other places.
The sun also was shining even more and part of him completely disappeared into the sun even before the ground pulled the rest of him under.
Poor Sparky!
As he lay in the dirt a great king came by on a large white horse and he remarked at the beauty of the stately tree who was now enjoying the fact that the spring had come.
The trees leaves were beginning to blossom and flowers were sprouting out to cover his naked limbs.
The great king even wrote a poem about how beautiful and wonderful the tree was to look at.
Sparky listened to him recite the words and he saw the tree grow taller and taller and prouder and prouder.
The tree was so important!
He had entertained kings and they had written poems about him.
Sparky thought it must be wonderful to be so important; and he wondered what would ever become of what was left of him as more and more people came to rest beneath the old tree and proclaimed its majesty, importance and glory.
Sparky became very sad.
He knew he was worth nothing at all.
The little snowflake that had become a puddle now lay deep in the soil and sometimes it seemed as if the tree was pulling at him.
Perhaps the tree was just poking fun at him for being so worthless.
Sparky didn’t even have the energy to complain anymore. He just lay there letting whatever happened next begin to happen.
Whatever was to happen next suddenly began to pale in significance compared to the loud moans and groans that began to come from the old tree and the land that lay beneath the tree.
Sparky was startled wide awake.
“I’m thirsty!” the old tree yelled out; but no one seemed to hear him.
Sparky thought surely someone as important as this tree would get a very quick response but no one came to the rescue.
A great famine had come upon the land and all the earth was dry and no water was to be found anywhere – except for that little bit of the puddle that was left from Sparky.
His waters were quickly sucked up by the panicking ground around the tree and soon the ground used the water to begin to make nutrients to nurture the old tree.
The water and the nutrients that the water brought from the wet soil gave new life and saved the tree!
The old tree finally lifted his head feeling much better and then he looked down to the ground where Sparky had bravely spent his last days and whispered “thank you” to his little friend who had once been a cheerful little snowflake.
“Thank you for what?” said Sparky growing weaker and weaker as the time passed on and on.
“Thank you for melting to make the water that formed the nutrients in the soil which fed my thirst as I worked to hold up my branches to shelter kings and queens and the rulers of the earth as they passed through the land.”
“Without your sacrifice; no one would have had any shade and I would never have produced the lovely fruits that are now forming on my branches which they will all come to feast upon when the summer times arrive.”
“Thank you little snowflake; for what you have done for me. It truly has saved the whole kingdom from being sad and hungry and provided them with my shade and my rest on their journeys.”
“You mean…….I WAS important after all?”
“Yes! You were very, very important Sparky.”
“Oh! So……you mean I actually had a purpose and part to play in the whole plan after all?”
“When you get to the end of the story Sparky; your part was the MOST important part of all. You gave all that you had to save the kingdom and you never even realized how important it was; you just did what you were destined to do! It was part of the plan all along.”
With those reassuring words Sparky smiled happily and drifted off to sleep. He was dreaming about being a snowflake again and when he awoke he knew that his dreams had actually come true!
The clouds had come down over the earth and absorbed him up into their fluffy white surfaces and he had floated on top of them until they had run into a rainstorm that had turned into an icy blizzard which had frozen him and made him, of all things; a snowflake again!
Soon Sparky found himself drifting on the winds and passing beneath a tall old tree.
He knew better than to pass on by without saying “hello.”
“I think I will stop here for the night” he said to himself. “These branches look strong and sturdy and they will hold me safely as I rest and wait until I know what comes next in my purpose on this earth. For surely I know I have a purpose more than just being a tiny little snowflake. “
Sparky snuggled down in the tree’s branches and he began to hum a song.
“Hey!” said the tree. “What makes you want to sing on such a cold, cold night as this?”
Sparky didn’t even blink before giving his answer to the old tree.
“I sing because I’m happy. I know my plan and I’ve done my part!”
The tree just shook his branches and stood against the cold winter winds. “Snowflakes…..” he said; “I’ll never understand them; they seem so very unimportant!”
His silly words didn’t bother Sparky at all. He soon fell sound asleep as he was waiting on the warmth of the sun to bring his new tomorrow.