the rest of the story

Some things in life do end up well.

On Thursday, I took you down a ranine nostalgia path in ¿como esta tu rana? -- how a frog managed to get trapped in my kitchen and its road back to health. When we left that story, the frog had recovered enough to climb out of his hospital bowl, stagger along the edge of a planter, and then -- just disappeared. Like an elephant at a David Copperfield show.

Given all the possibilities of the frog's fate, I had stopped thinking about him. Until this morning.

Today is one of Dora's cleaning days. I have several duties. Collecting the toilet paper bags. Changing out the kitchen garbage. Making my bed. Putting away the dishes in the rack. And picking up the leaves and flowers that accumulate on the patio during the night.

Two of the four planters have small palms planted at the base of the cup-of-gold vines. They are magnets for leaves and flowers, funneling them down to the palm base where they form clots of debris that make satisfactory homes for stinging ants. I try to cut the cycle while the leaves are on the fronds.

Today there was a layer of green leaves on one palm frond. I picked up most of them. But the last leaf was just a bit hefty. It was the frog.

I am not a sentimental person, but I confess that I felt a bit of pride seeing him resting there calmly waiting for a passing meal or another night-time hunting foray. When Dora arrives, I will alert her to his presence. Neither one of us needs to molest him.

Does his survival destine him for some Greater Purpose? Probably, not. He was a frog, is a frog, and will be a frog until he comes to some sort of end.

But I hope our encounter will somehow change me. After all, that is why we are on this journey, isn't it? To share the kindness and grace granted to us. And to choose life.