We are the children of a Mama, who doesn’t much care for creepy-crawlies!
But we never knew she didn’t like them. When we used to bring them in for her to see she would help us make a home for them (we didn’t know just how eager she was for the lid of the jar to be secured….fast!). Neither did we know how glad she is that we live in New Zealand, where there is nothing poisonous, no snakes, and hardly even anything that will bite.
We are the children of a Mama, who doesn’t particularly like gardens. In her opinion, they would be nice if they didn’t give her hayfever or grow weeds, but you can’t have one without the other, can you? But we didn’t know she’s not so fond of gardening – you’d never guess it by the amount of our food she grows and her not-so-quiet yearnings for more land.
We are the children of a Mama, who was not disappointed when the birds we had been given for Christmas escaped…….who was not disappointed when the tadpoles we caught on a camping trip didn’t turn into frogs, but eventually died their fishy-deaths…..who was not disappointed when the neighbours arrived home from their holidays and their cats and guinea pigs in our care had not succumbed to the fate of our own pets. But we didn’t know about these things either. We thought she loved them all as much as we did. I mean to say, she cried when we read Charlotte’s Web.
We are the children of a mother, who would like the beach if it had no sand or salt. Yet she’s the one who bundles us up in the middle of winter and takes us to run along the sandy shore.
We are the children of a mother, who knew very little about the natural world a few years ago, but who would always ”look it up” with enthusiasm when we came with questions. We didn’t realise she didn’t actually care.
But now we know.
And she has told us that her life has been enhanced by watching our delight in creation. Now she’ll stop to study a spider’s web, or look at a flower….even if we are not with her.
And she says that the miracles she has seen through our eyes just prove that it doesn’t take a naturalist to raise one.
