THE BLUE ROSE

IN THIS STORY OF ONE LITTLE GIRL-AS RARE AND BEAUTIFUL,IN HER WAY,AS A BLUE ROSE-LIES A MESSAGE OF LOVE FOR US ALL

Jenny is a little girl-a lovely little girl.
She has brown eyes and dark brown hair.
If her hair fails into her eyes she brushes it away.
But her hand does not go straight to her forehead.
Instead,it curves around like a flower first opening its petals.
Then she brushes her hair out of her eyes.
You see,Jenny is different.
Different?
Yes,different from most other little girls.
But surely all people do not have to be alike,
think a like,
act alike,
or look alike.
To me,JENNY IS LIKE A BLUE ROSE
A BLUE ROSE?
Have you ever seen a blue rose?
There are white roses and pink roses and yellow roses
and of course lots of red roses
But BLUE?
Every gardener would love to raisea blue rose.
People would come from far away to see it.
It would be rare and different and beautiful.
Jenny is different too,
And so,in a way she is like a blue rose.
When Jenny came first came home from the hospital
-a pink baby,all cuddly and round-she cried often.
She cried more than most babies.
WHY?
Well perhaps
She saw different shadows that frightened her.
Perhaps she heard sounds that were strange to her.
When she was older,Jenny always stayed close to her mother
and held on her tightly.
You know when a kitten loses its tail
it is said to gain sharper ears.
It is true that a tail helps a kitten run faster.
But a kitten without a tail hear better and can detect approaching
footsteps long before other kittens do.
Some people donot know about such a kitten's fine ears,
they only see the lack of a tail.
Some children are cruel and stare and taunt;
The kitten has no tail
The kitten has no tail
Sometimes,Jenny would run up to her mother
and clutch her tightly,
for no apparent
reason at all.
At least,for none that we could see.
And so we came to understand that
Jenny's world was a little different,
unknown to us,in some ways.
We began to think that
she was ina world in which we might not feel
completely at home.
To go there might ,in a way be like going
ANOTHER PLANET.

THE BLUE ROSE(CONTINUED)

In a way it is as if Jenny is standing behind a screen
a screen we cannot see.
Maybe it has beautiful colors.
Maybe the colors distract
Jenny at times from paying attention
when we talk to her.
Or perhaps she listens to music we cannot hear.
It is said
that fish have language and a music of their own
carried by the waves.
Music we cannot hear because our ears
are not fine enough.
So Jenny might hear sounds we never hear.
Maybe that is why she jumps up at times
and goes into her awkward dance.
I sometimes think Jenny is like a bird,
a bird with very short wings.
For such a bird,flying is hard;
ıt takes more strength,more effort,more time.
A bird with normal wings takes flying for granted
but a bird with short wings
has to work much harder at learning.
In a way,it has to be smarter.
And so ,therefore,we have to understand
how much Jeny has accomplished
when she does learn something.
But there is another Jenny
A Jenny who,on a stormy winter afternoon,
sits in her little rocking chair alone
and rocks,
holding her doll in her arms.
She is very troubled and puzzled,
and she says ,slowly
Mommy,
Sally says I am retarded
What does it mean mommy?
Retarded?
The children say retared,and laugh.
Why do they laugh Mommy?
There are many things Jenny does not understand.
And there are many things other people donot
understand about Jenny;
That Jenny is like
a kitten witout a tail;
that Jenny hears a different music;
that Jenny is like a bird with
shorter wings and has to be protected.
Jenny is like a blue rose,
delicate and lovely.
And because there are so few blue roses,
we donot know much about them.
WE ONLY KNOW
THAT THEY HAVE TO BE TENDED MORE CAREFULLY
AND LOVED MORE.

Condensed from the book by Gerda Klein.

Birth of an elephant

From a cluster of high rocks in Ceylon's Yala game sanctuary ,W.L.A Andiris ,a forest guard ,witnessed what few humans have seen-a ritualistic birth of a baby elephant.He recorded the experienceFor the Ceylon Department of Wild life:
It was obvious that the mother elephant and the eight attending midwives had previously made a careful selection of their maternity room in a clearing adjoining a small lagoon ,well hidden by deep jungle on all sides.
The mother elephant lay on her side in the clearing.The eight attendants surrounded her ,caressing her gently with their trunks.As time of birth approached ,the mother became more and more nervous ,shifting her position in the clearing by taking few steps this way and that,lying down after each movement.Seven of the attendant elephants withdrew into the jungles ,leaving one with the expectant mother.From time to time,the midwives came from the the jungle in pairs to check the mother with their trunks.
Actual birth of the baby was accomplished without any apparent strain or sound from the mother.The mother left the baby and walked about ten paces away.She trumpeted and the other elephants emerged from the jungle ,also trumpeted and caressed her.
Then,while the mother rested on the ground,all eight turned in unison to the child.One gently set it on its feet.Each of the eight in turn moved past the new born baby and blew sand on it with her trunk ,drying its fuzzy hide.Thiz continued for an half an hour.By then the calf stood quite steady.
Now the mother stood up ,trumpeted loudly,and walked swiftly to her tiny child.She lifted the calf with her trunk and took it aside away from the other elephants.Then she gently lowered herself to her knees and permitted her child to have its first meal.
This important event finished ,the mother again trumpeted ,picked up her calf in her trunk ,raised it high over her head ,and disappeared into the jungles escorted by her maternity staff.