Two short offerings

Mel Makaw.

The Internet is a wonderful source of facts (and, I admit, a fair amount of nonsense) and a great place for communication and inspiration. I especially love hearing from friends who share those precious little stories of inspiration, which I like to pass on to you. This is one of those stories (author unknown):

"My dad has bees. Today I went to his house, and he showed me all of the honey he had gotten from the hives. He took the lid off of a five-gallon bucket full of honey, and on top of the honey there were 3 little bees, struggling. They were covered in sticky honey and drowning. I asked him if we could help them, and he said he was sure they wouldn't survive. Casualties of honey collection, I suppose.

"I asked him again if we could at least get them out and kill them quickly. After all, he was the one who taught me to put a suffering animal (or bug) out of its misery. He finally conceded and scooped the bees out of the bucket. He put them in an empty Chobani yogurt container and put the plastic container outside.

"Because he had disrupted the hive with the earlier honey collection, there were bees flying all over outside. We went ahead and put the three little bees in the container on a bench and left them to their fate.

"My dad called me out a little while later to show me what was happening. These three little bees were surrounded by all of their sisters (all of the bees are females) and they were cleaning the sticky nearly dead bees, helping them to get all of the honey off of their bodies. We came back a short time later, and there was only one little bee left in the container. She was still being tended to by her sisters.

"When it was time for me to leave, we checked one last time, and all three of the bees had been cleaned off enough to fly away, and the container was empty. Those three little bees lived because they were surrounded by family and friends who would not give up on them, family and friends who refused to let them drown in their own stickiness and resolved to help until the last little bee could be set free.

"Bee Sisters. Bee Peers. Bee Teammates. We could all learn a thing or two from these bees. Bee kind always."

A simple story but a good one – a good reminder that we are, sometimes, our brother's (or sister's) keeper, and we can all lend a helping hand when needed.

And this is another good one (also original author unknown):

"You are holding a cup of coffee when someone comes along and bumps into you or shakes your arm, making you spill your coffee everywhere. Why did you spill the coffee? 'Because someone bumped into me!!!'

"Wrong answer.

"You spilled the coffee because there was coffee in your cup. Had there been tea in the cup, you would have spilled tea. Whatever is inside the cup is what will spill out.

"Therefore, when life comes along and shakes you (which will happen), whatever is inside you will come out. It's easy to fake it, until you get rattled.

"So, we have to ask ourselves... 'what's in my cup?' When life gets tough, what spills over? Joy, gratitude, peace and humility? Anger, bitterness, victim mentality, and quitter tendencies?

"Life provides the cup; you choose how to fill it."

A good reminder to fill our cups with joy, forgiveness and gratitude, along with positive thoughts and words of affirmation. If something is to spill out, let it be kindness, gentleness and love.

© 2024 Mel Makaw. Mel is a local writer/photographer and author of On the Bright Side, a collection of columns plus a new fiction compilation called On Tilt. Mel will be signing her books at the Tehachapi Arts Center from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Sept. 21. She welcomes your comments at [email protected]/.