When I was 19, my best friend decided to go to be a missionary in Taiwan. Alone. Completely alone. I was in awe and confusion why someone would want to go anywhere alone. Yet off she went, with God as her friend and guide and she thrived. I am still in awe and wonder at this courage.
I have always needed someone by my side. Which is why I waited 5 years longer before meeting my husband and partner and building a new life together.
More recently I’ve been waiting for someone to partner up with. To make dreams come true. This used to be my children but they have other interests now. My husband and dad are working hard to provide and my next door neighbour farmer friend is tired and jaded. I do understand. After a lifetime of hard graft and fighting to keep your inheritance, he needs to pass the baton on. Yet when I suggest we put hens or goats in the field. Or a dairy cow, (of all shocking ideas), I am met with resigned indifference. Hens will get killed by a fox or locked up from bird flu. Goats escape. Sheep get lame. Cows churn up the grass. Pigs eat too much. The only thing we can agree on is vegetables. Of which he grows yearly. Hundred of cabbages line the field behind us. Then religiously, once they have grown; a few are harvested and the rest go to seed. The general spirit here is passivity and dissolusionment.
My friend in Taiwan taught me something that has stayed with me and it is this: sometimes you have to do it alone.
I also learnt this lesson from a child’s ladybird book ‘The Little Red Hen’. It has becomd a saying between my husband and I.
“Be like the Little Red Hen!”
No one would help the Little Red Hen grow, harvest or grind her wheat to make some bread. They were happy for her to get on with it. No one would help her to bake it. “NOT I” said the cat, “Not I”, said the rat, “Not I”, said the pig. “Then i shall do it myself”, said the little red hen.
“And she did.”
Recently I’ve been wondering if I need to go back to that Little Red Hen and my friend in Taiwan.
Maybe I need to start something myself…