Dedication
The second volume in the series “A Little Frog’s Heart” is dedicated to my Father: a strong spirit, truly alive, which I hope has found its due place in this miraculous universe.
I therefore dedicate a pious homage to him, not only because I owe him my life – divine Sunrise – but especially because of the education he gave me. The reason is that it was not a conventional education, but one that was wholly special, outside of classic patterns. There were moments when I asked myself whether it was not the education, but Father himself who was special, different from other parents?! Who knows…
He tried to inoculate me with a vision of life which would be as clear as possible, and he did not do it in a moralising spirit which might have induced a state of fear or boredom with regard to his advice! No! Father opened my eyes to the world with the help of thousands, of countless proverbs, sayings, and meaningful stories, many invented by himself, but each of them said at the proper time.
The fantastic thing is that Father was trying not to repeat himself, if possible, to avoid his words being transformed into a routine! As a result, I would become very attentive! Of course, my playful age was to blame for this. I believed that each time he talked to me Father was joking. Although his attitude was grave, and his face serious – the way he talked to me was captivating! I could hardly wait to hear a new piece of advice, getting to live his words with each fibre of my being!
I will present here only two of Father’s “teachings”, which my conscience just simply tattooed on its body, so I could always see them together, for the rest of my life. I did not forget the other teachings either, I will keep them carefully in the priceless archive of my childhood’s memories, and just like my father, I will scatter them at the proper time, even in the pages of the Little Frog’s Heart.
The first teaching…
I would often drop something or another out of my hand, and this happened even in front of Father several times. He would study me with his eyes each time, but he would not “tell me off” immediately, instead he waited patiently until he was convinced his eyes had said enough to me.
But one day, when I had already grown a little, it happened again: I dropped something out of my hand. I hurried to pick up the object, feeling Father’s burning gaze fixed on me… And then, with gentle authority, he said:
“Son, this is not the first time…But imagine yourself above a fountain at this moment when you dropped that thing, for which I see you care pretty much… Or, maybe it would have been swallowed by the flames of an unmerciful fire, or by a bottomless chasm! How were you going to recover it?”
He then fell silent, and he pinned me with his piercing gaze. He wanted to make sure I understood the meaning of his words. Of course, I smiled playfully, I took it all as a joke, as usual. I visualised his words, but, proud of myself, I bent to pick up the object I’d dropped, to show him that reality was wholly different. He had, therefore, no reason to worry.
That day, however, Father held me by the shoulders, looking into my eyes. I was almost scared of his reaction!
“Don’t laugh, child! I want you to SEE, my dear boy! I want you to SEE that you would not have been able to recover it in the situations of which I reminded you …”
“Yes, Father, I SEE!” I whispered to him, looking into his heavenly blue eyes.
“I am glad …” he said, embracing me. “You have to take care of everything that you will get to ‘hold in your hand’ during your lifetime, in order not to drop, by lack of attention, some gift received from Above! Opportunities in life are unique! Look upon any event, any moment, as if it were an opportunity! Should it be proved that you do not care, that you will ignore it, the opportunity will never return!”
“Yes, Father…” I whispered closing my eyes, visualising the opportunity he had talked about, and clinging to his chest.
Father picked up the object I had dropped. He wiped it with care and put it in the palm of my hand. He then closed my little hand, gripping it softly in his protective fist, as if locking it, so that it wouldn’t ever be dropped again.
“Come here, Father’s dear child!” he opened his arms widely, bending above me.
He embraced me again, kissed me on my forehead and then went to see about his business, leaving me there to think in peace about the meaning of the words which had been spoken.
I will be open with you, dear readers, and I will confess that it was only many years later that I took in Father’s saying properly. I don’t know, maybe it was my tender age that made me take everything as a joke back then? I now realise clearly that I have to respect and value anything that is given me, so that it would not, by my losing it, end up in the hands of somebody who could use it even against me and everything I hold dear…
Father’s second important teaching, which I would like to share with you, is the following:
“Son, never disappoint those who trust you! Life will return everything to you, like a boomerang, and you will suffer greatly when you will feel it!”
How many times did father tell me this? It’s hard for me to remember, since there were many times that I didn’t listen to him or to Mother…
The years have passed and I managed to experience the truth of these words in my own skin. My mind brought them to the forefront every day, especially when I woke up alone, in a cold, dark, unwelcoming, God-forsaken cell, which I could never even imagine existed. Because it is true. Disappointment is bitter when you are betrayed by everyone you had trusted!
I was looking at the sun through the bars of the accursed cell, trying not to blink. The bars fed off parts of the days of my life. I was leaving my eyes to the mercy of the sun’s rays, and they hurried to punish them, the way they do with anyone who dares to confront them. I was, therefore, masking the “wailing of pain”, blaming the rays, unwilling to offer satisfaction to the prison’s walls that only feed off the suffering of those who ended up behind them. My tears were streaming, hot, but I felt that, as they flowed, my body was purifying itself. And I was thinking of Father… with regret that I had disappointed him so many times when I was a child…
My parents, who are now two angels, never hit me. They didn’t even tell me off! Their education was not a moralising one! They told me the proper way to do things in various situations, but left me alone to choose the road I was going to follow.
I have always lived the feeling of complete freedom intensely, feeling like a feather carried by the breath of the wind, not opposing it in any way. This is why I consider that, as a child, maybe I was different from the other children my age. I liked this feeling and I wanted always to stay like that, and the thought repaid my loyalty by helping me describe stories which I would like to be just as special.
Freedom and health seem to me the most valuable Gifts offered to me from the time my life began; and from my Father I learned that I have to value them properly, not to disappoint He who offered me these Gifts and, especially, never to “drop them out of my hands”!
