Similar to the Salmon

[ozzieowl]

Well my friends, it all started last Sunday night,
whils't watching one of David Attenborough's Documentaries,
this particular one was about the life cycle of the North Atlantic Salmon
- the home of the Grizzly Bear.
Now they do say, that if you want to get your message across with
young boys, the best way to do it, is to choose a time when they
are focusing on something else, as apparently, they don't like
direct one-to-one eye contact (I personally think this could apply
to `growed up' males as well, lol).

It is quite often that I am having to collect my grandsons from
school or some other venue, and so one afternoon last week,
I had Cameron or `Cammy' as I have nick-named him, sitting
beside me in the car as we were driving home.
And I have come to notice that this cozy little environment is
where Cammy almost always chooses to impart the most
intricate, complicated and intellectually `deep' conversations
that you could imagine can exist in a young ten year old's life.
Although, the juiciest bits seem to arise,
just as I am negotiating a 5 way very busy round-a-bout,
or complicated intersection, so sometimes I miss out on things...
It also wouldn't surprise me if, one day I find myself up at
Mt. Tambourine instead of the gateway entrance to home! lol!

So this afternoon, I am the one doing the talking, and I start
relaying how interesting that Documentary about the salmon fish
making their way up-stream to spawn and drop their eggs in the
rivers - back to the precise spot from where they themselves were born.
And that during that driving, yet extremely exhausting journey,
they encounter the waiting grizzly bears with their cubs in tow,
that have just come out of hibernation where they have lost all of
their body fat that they need for their own survival.

This is one of the most important events for the Grizzlies
and it's not as easy as one would think it is to actually catch
those fish is the fast flowing waters, but then, once the salmon
have made it up to the top of the river beds and ponds,
that can be shallow in places, that is where the bears know to wait,
and where they can most easily grab their dinner.

Once the salmon have laid their eggs, they are exhausted from
the long arduous journey, and so they slowly start to die,
their carcasses ensuring plenty of food for the new breed of salmon
when they are expelled from the eggs.

Meanwhile, the Grizzly's have choice pickings of the dying and dead
salmon, and the bears take the fish further inland towards those
magnificent conifer trees that rise hundreds of feet towards the skies.
Apparently, as the dead fish deteriorate and decay, over time,
this substance that is left returns into the ground to replenish
the earth with it's very rich nutrients that have come from the
Atlantic ocean, brought up-stream by the salmon.
All of this ensures that a continuing `cycle of life' is ever ongoing.

Cammy was listening with great interest as I was relaying all of this,
and when I had finally stopped talking,
he glances over my way with a somewhat serious look on his little face,
and he announces to me in a most matter-of-fact way....
"Nan.....everything comes to an end, everything always has to end....
because the world has to continue, the world wants to go on"

I was looking into his eyes, knowing that what he said was true,
I was silently understanding that my time will come to an end too,
as it does, and then he will be here to go on,
and it was only this instant sitting next to my grandson in my car,
that I realized that I was very happy for it to be that way......
may Cammy and all my three other gorgeous grandsons
have a long and happy life, much, much longer than what the Salmon have.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[ozzieowl]

I know that your children are going to experience and enjoy a wonderful life for themselves,
purely because they have been given a tremendous head-start by their parents,
no amount of money can compare with the one-on-one attention, nurturing and love
that a Mum and/or Dad can pass on to their beloved children.....
Have a funtastik week ahead Karen - thankyou.