Ruth, a scrawny year-old humpback whale, never feels connected with her fellow humpbacks. Everyone else her age is twice her size. And on top of that, her sight isn't very strong. She's constantly bumping into large rocks, the reef, and other humpbacks. The others always make fun of her. Joking about her size, "I think you were meant to be a dolphin," one cackles. "Or maybe a mole? Since you can't see a thing!" another adds. Ruth spends most of her time alone, swimming the same route she does day after day. She has it memorized so that she won't embarrass herself by running into things. It's a wide open ocean. It shouldn't be that hard to avoid obstacles. But when an obstacle the size of a silver dollar comes swimming at you full speed, there's really not much one can do!
THUD.
"Ow... what in the world was that?" Ruth rubs the tip of her nose. She looks around trying to figure out what had just hit her. There's a small green object lying on the floor of the ocean. She swims down next to it, inches away.
"Please, don't eat me! I'm sorry, I wasn't paying attention to where I was swimming!" a little voice croaks from the being lying on the floor.
"I'm not going to eat you, silly! I just can't see very well. Are you a sea turtle?"
"Oh. Yes, I am. My name is Eugene."
"Nice to meet you, Eugene, I'm Ruth!"
"I've never met a humpback. Y'all are even bigger up close." Eugene's eyes widen as she gets up and dusts herself off. "That was quite the collision, nearly knocked me out!"
"And I have never met a sea turtle. You are so tiny, I didn't even see you coming! How did you miss me?" Ruth asks.
"Well, I was playing tag with my friends and I must have wandered off a bit far. I was looking back to see if anyone was chasing me and BAM, I ran into a wall. Or, so I thought. And the next thing I remember was this creature with huge eyes staring at me!" Eugene explains.
"Well, I am sorry about that. I would have gotten out of your way had I seen you!"
They are both laughing at this point. And from this day on they are inseparable. With Eugene by Ruth's side, Ruth is able to venture out to parts of the sea she has never seen. Eugene is always the eyes of the duo and if they come upon any potential threats, Ruth is big enough to protect the both of them. But others cannot understand why a humpback and a sea turtle would want to be friends with one another. I mean, it is truly unheard of.
"Glad you finally found someone to take pity on you, Ruth." A girl humpback named Calliope taunts Ruth about her new found friendship. "Looks like a match made in heaven!"
Eugene just cannot hold her tongue. She swims up to Calliope, and shaking her fin in the giant mammal's face says, "You can't understand true friendship till you learn to love someone who couldn't be more different from you. How shallow of you to hate on our friendship. It's possible that our relationship is the deepest one in the ocean. Living the way you do, you may never find a friendship like ours." And with that she turns to Ruth. "C'mon, we don't need to waste time with whales who have nothing interesting to say."
Ruth and Eugene's friendship only grew stronger over time. Their husbands became great friends as well, and their children, and their children's children. To this day they still swim the same route they always have. They are the one reason sea creatures all intermingle now. Diversity is what makes the sea so rich and in embracing it they unlocked a door of endless love and happiness.
Author's Note:
After reading Jataka Tales by Ellen C. Babbitt last week I was inspired to write a story with cute animals in it. Each Jataka tale always has a lesson in it. I wanted to choose a lesson very important to me. That's why my lesson is to accept others no matter how different they may be from you. I love the diversity in our world and can't understand why more of us can't learn to embrace it! Without diversity, the world would be a pretty boring place. I wanted to use a sea turtle and a humpback because they are such different creatures. My humpback, Ruth, was modeled after a character from Finding Dory. And my sea turtle, Eugene, was modeled after Squirt from Finding Nemo! I feel like these days many are in need of this lesson. We are all too caught up in our own ways to try to accept anyone else. All I ever see on the news anymore is violence and more violence. And it all centers around the same issue, people not seeing eye to eye. I hope that one day we can overcome all of this adversity and learn to love one another despite our diversity.
Bibliography: Jataka Tales by Ellen C. Babbitt
