SHORT STORY: MICHELLE, LISA AND THEIR DAY OUT
Michelle gently held onto to Lisa's left hand as the two walked. She knew that Lisa would break the silence any second now. Lisa was bursting with the I-have-a-question-and-I-want-to-ask-you-soon look. It has been three minutes since they left the house and and three minutes is about the threshold for three-year old Lisa before she succumbed to her curiosity about things.
"Mommy, what is the difference between people who eat meat and those who don't", she asked, looking up as Michelle walked slowly. Michelle was always conscious and made sure that that she walked at a pace that Lisa was comfortable with.
"There is no difference, my little love," Michelle said in her soft for-Lisa-whom-I-adore tone of voice.
Lisa looked up, with a puzzled look in her eyes. The little lady was expecting an answer that would have reaffirmed what her friend Amy had told her.
Amy Wong had told Lisa, and all this was according to Amy's mother who is a Buddhist, that people who ate meat were aggressive and violent. Those who ate only vegetables were gentle and peace-loving people.
"But Amy said people who eat meat are always angry," Lisa protested in her own little way, with a mini little frown on her forehead and voice full of a the weirdly strange mixture of uncertainty and certainty that only children could pull off.
"Amy is wrong my little darling. Everyone, whether they eat meat and vegetables OR people who only eat vegetables, are capable of getting angry. People who only eat vegetables are also capable of doing bad things," Michelle gently explained.
"They might think they are gentle, but it is only probably because they are actually very tired all the time because they do not get all the nutrients that meat provides the rest of us. We eat meat, so we have energy all the time," Michelle cheekily said, tilting her shoulders up and down and moving her head to the left and right to comically imply strength and power, wearing a mock-serious look before instantly breaking into a laugh, and Lisa's face instantaneously loosened to a smile on seeing her mother's robot-moves and hearing her Mommy's laughter.
Michelle noticed that Lisa's steps lightened somewhat when she did that funny robot move. Humor always had a funny way of oiling human interaction. Michelle treasured the times when she is able to diffuse Lisa's concerns and uncertainties. And she always spoke slowly to her daughter, to make sure that the little girl understood exactly what Michelle said and meant.
Lisa's trust in her mother was absolute.
In raising. Lisa, Michelle and Nicolas agreed that they would tell Lisa the truth about life if Lisa asked any questions. Any question at all, except for things like discussions of the birds and bees, which they both agreed would only be broached or explained when she reached a suitable age.
From Lisa's very beginning, these young parents wanted Lisa to be grounded in reality and truth. They saw it as their duty to guide Lisa on the path of morality and truth.
"Why did Amy's mother tell her that, Mommy?" Lisa asked.
"Oh, that's easy darling. What is the one thing that I always say is very important to remember before we say something?" Michelle asked.
"Logic. We must think logically before we say anything. And we must weigh the impact of what we say on others," Lisa happily answered.
Michelle nodded with a school-marmish, "Yes! Correct!", while not being able to help herself but being impressed by Lisa's capacity for understanding such high concepts. This child is going to grow up to be a genius, she thought to herself.
"Come, explain to me how vegetables are grown and we will see why Amy's mom was wrong, OK. What do you need to grow vegetables?" Michelle began, looking at her daughter momentarily having paused their walk. Then, resuming their walk, Michelle looked ahead, smiling and nodding at passers-by. Michelle always kept her eyes peeled out to the surroundings -- safety was her constant concern. Michelle always was on the lookout for cyclists on the sidewalk, for cars at junctions, for unleashed dogs, for skateboarding kids -- just about anything that could endanger Lisa in one way or another.
"You need seeds to plant vegetables," Lisa offered.
"Yes," Michelle agreed. "For the seeds to grow well, you need fertilizers. Fertilizers come from chicken droppings and cow manure."
"Mommy, chickens eat worms and insects!" Lisa suddenly realized.
"Yes dear," Michelle affirmed.
"But, cows only eat grass," Lisa added, as the thought hit her.
"How do grass grow?" Michelle asked her daughter.
"They grow on the ground," Lisa said, keeping up with her mother's answers and questions.
"You see Lisa, in the soil, there are living things. Worms and other insects. And sometimes even animals, like birds and deers, or insects like grasshoppers, these living things die. They they end up in the soil," Michelle explained.
"And some are eaten by wild animals like cougars, and vultures, Mommy," Lisa offered.
"Yes dear, and these animals also grow old and they too, you know..." Michelle trailed off her words, while looking at Lisa. Michelle was extremely uncomfortable saying words like "die" because she felt. Lisa was too young to hear negative words like "dead", "dearth", "killed", "murdered" and the such.
"Yes..." Lisa trailed,eagerly waiting for her mother to continue.
"All living things that go back to the soil, are broken down by insects and worms and bacteria. It is the cycle of life that keeps our beautiful planet Earth alive," Michelle continued, in her gentle maternal tone of voice. She wanted desperately to cancel out any negativity implied by the idea of death and, instead, play up the positiveness of preserving mother nature and the environment.
"The small microscopic things in the soil -- bacteria... what is microscopic darling?"
"Microscopic is something we cannot see with our eyes. We need to go to the laboratory to see microscopic things, Mommy," Lisa offered her definition.
"Clever girl! Yes, these microscopic things, like bacteria, then change those organic things that are breaking down to smaller and smaller things to become food for plants and tress and food for grass and vegetables. This type of food become the vitamins for the plants and vegetables and flowers and fruits and all green things," Michelle.
Lisa's eyes were wide. The light bulbs in her head were furiously lighting up. "Mommy, plants end up eating animals too! I didn't know that Mommy!"
Michelle was happy to hear that. Lisa's capacity for processing logic always impressed Michelle. She was very proud of her little daughter.
The two walked for another ten minutes, talking about fertilizers and fruits and flowers and plants before they reached the playground where Lisa's playmates Amy, Suresh, Derek and Jeremy were waiting for her. The kids gathered there every alternate morning to play and the mothers and house-husbands would sit back and keep an eye on their precious little tots.
This morning, Michelle was especially proud of the fact that Lisa didn't bring up the matter of meat eaters and vegetarians with Amy at the playground. Lisa was a sensible young girl and she would probably bring it up when Amy is invited over for lunch with the other kids and the two were playing house with their dolls. And even then, Lisa would only talk with Amy about the matter after doing plenty of research by asking her parents to help explain to her the information on the Internet (having got either parent to Google terms, she would point to the search list and ask her mother or father to click on the various results and read the content -- dwelling on those that pique her interest and moving on quickly from those that didn't interest her); grilling her parents further for more information and also making Michelle and Nicolas read from the children's encyclopedia set that they had at home.
"You know, darling," Michelle said to Nicolas, later that evening as the couple sat on the sofa where Nicolas was reading the papers and Lisa was playing with her Barbie dolls -- "we are raising quite an extraordinary young girl there!"
