September
7, 2003
“OUTSIDE
WITH THAT THING!” I yelled out, as three of my cubs ran inside
with some type of weird looking insect,
“It won’t hurt you,
Mamma,”
“I don’t care,
little girl, get it outside! It doesn’t belong in my house!” Tanjia looked at me,
a little hurt. Then headed out to let the thing go.
I headed out after
her.
“Tanny,
I’m sorry that I raised my voice, but you can’t be bringing bugs inside, not
with all the infants around. One of them could get sick. Besides you shouldn’t
really mess with them yourself, you may get bitten by something poisonous.
“No, I won’t Mamma; bees
even let me pet them! They all like me.” Tanjia
pointed to where a rabbit sat.
“Watch this, but
stay where you're at.” Nodding, I humored her.
I thought the little creature would surely run off, but it didn’t; it
just let Tanjia sit there and pet it. I stood there
with my mouth dropped; I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Then deer walked
out of the brush and nuzzled my daughter. This really couldn’t be happening. Tanjia could tame the wildest animals! They all trusted her
for some reason or another.
After they all had
enough of each other, Tanjia walked back over to me.
“I don’t know why I
can do it, Just always have been able to. They like me for some reason, and I
like them even the squirrels like me! Watch!” She told
me as she reached up and let one of the little creatures crawl into her
arms. I watched still amazed at what I
was seeing, of course anyone would be if they saw what I did at this very
minute.
Tanjia sat there, talking to
this animal just like it was one of her friends or something. In fact I knew it
was and I knew what she had was a gift, and I wasn’t about to take it from her.
I just praised her when she finished talking to it and came back over to me.
“Maybe this has
something to do with your heritage.”
“I don’t know, no
one's ever told me anything about being able to do this. They all thought of me
as strange; that’s the other reason they didn’t want me around.”
“Who are they?”
“The
people who killed my parents and siblings.” My heart felt for this little girl. And I let
her know it, but I also let her know that she had something that was rare in
anyone. Those wild animals trust her. Which means that she has to be truly pure
hearted otherwise they wouldn’t act like they did with her just them. Tanjia nodded.
“And little girl, I
don’t ever want you to forget that. Alright?”
“Kay Mamma.” She
answered before heading over to the bee hive that was hanging in the birch
trees.
“Tanjia,
I don’t think that I want you to be…”
“It's alright Mamma!
I do it all the time.”
“I still don’t know
if I want you handling bees, you might…”
“No I won’t I never
get stung!” She told me. “They let me get honey if I want it,” Just as she said
that Tanjia put her hands straight into the hive,
sure enough not one of those bees had harmed her when I inspected her.
“Just don’t show
your younger siblings that you can do that. I don’t need to be going around
patching everyone else up.”
“I won’t Mamma.” She
replied. That part is what gave me the creeps, the fact that Tanjia could put her hand in a bee’s nest even. NOW THAT’S
different! I’d say beyond different. That little girl surely had a gift. I knew
that I better not let her see what was going to happen to some of the older
cows soon. Tanni might have a fit for sure. I knew
that as well! I decided that part would happen while she was in Rainbowland, that way she’d never find out. Not yet. Unless she already knows.