About the “little frog” and a really big feeling
Today, Pa and I rolled up our sleeves and painted eggs. Together, we made a frog.
“Oh, this one will go to Daminyk,” Pa nods, examining our joint creation.
“He’s our frog rescuer,” she adds.
I’m not very fond of frogs. Tiny ones are half the problem. But the big “lumps,” the ones that barely fit in your hand, I really don’t like. Unpleasant, honestly. And though I haven’t handled them in detail, just looking at them from a distance, I can imagine that touching them would be… unpleasant.
And today, as if on cue, when spring is nudging us outside, the frogs also move toward that same side. They stir. They wiggle. A decent little “pile” of them. And, ignoring the road signs, they try to reach their goal in the clumsiest way, thinking they can “transport” themselves across the road.
What are they looking for there? Suitors? Ladies? Luck? That other side seems coated in honey, irresistibly enticing. They must leap, no matter what.
“Mom, could their sticky skin be like a reflection?” Do shrugs as we walk our loop around the neighborhood yesterday. I shake my head firmly, using my modest biology knowledge and the memory that I’ve never seen “jumping beetles” on the road while driving.
“Poor things,” sighs nature-lover Do, eyeing a frog that didn’t quite cross the road successfully.
“Maybe we should dig a ditch along the road?” he cheerfully suggests.
“Then they’d all jump into it and avoid the wheels.”
“A long ditch, though,” I smile, scanning the road we’re walking.
“Maybe we could call the neighbors to help?” he continues, undeterred.
“And then we could take turns watching the ditch every day and lift the frogs out.”
He finishes his brilliant frog-rescue plan like a tiny “Tadas Ivanauskas Junior.”
In my mind, I already picture the neighborhood volunteer team digging “long ditches” and taking shifts on the frog-rescue line. We’d become famous, I smile to myself.
Night falls. Do marches along, flashlight in hand, and soon spots a moving little pile.
“Oh, a frog!” he shouts. “Alive! And so big!”
Soon, a car’s headlights appear on the horizon. Probably calculating that the little frog would meet a sad fate, he tries to nudge it to safety with a stick. The frog doesn’t listen. It resists, squeaking a sharp, angry sound.
Then… he scoops the frog (or maybe a toad—it was crawling, not hopping) into both hands, barely fitting, and places it safely across the road, by the feet of the pavement.
“Go,” he says, letting the frog/toad slip from his hands. “Maybe you’re hurrying to the kids.”
A tear of pride squeezes my throat. We return home happy. He—having saved a few more frogs. And me—with a heart as full and good as that little frog’s life.
For the children who understand and feel, sometimes even more than we adults do.
V.
