story of a little beetle…

Once, in a little pond, in the muddy water under the lily pads lived a little water beetle in a community of other water beetles.  They lived a simple and comfortable life in the pond.

Once in a while though, sadness came into their community when one of the little beetles would climb the stem of a lily pad and would never be seen again.  They knew when this happened because their friend was dead, gone not to be seen by them again.

Then, one day, the little beetle felt an irresistible urge to climb the stem of the lily pad. However, he was determined that he would come back and he would not leave forever.  He would come back and tell his friends what he had found at the top of the lily stem.

When he reached the top and climbed out of the water and onto the surface of the lily pad, he felt so tired and exhausted, so he decided to to have a little rest before he returned to his community.  The sun felt so warm that he soon drifted off to sleep.

As he slept, his body began to change so that when he woke up, he had turned into a beautiful slender blue tailed dragonfly with beautiful wings designed to fly.

And fly he did!  As he soared and saw the beauty of a world that was so new to him and far superior to the one under the water he had known he felt exhilarated with his new learning.

But he remembered his promise to his friends and soon his thoughts drifted to how sad they would be, thinking that now he was dead.  He wanted to go back and tell them, that this world was so much more beautiful with splendid new things to do but most of all he wanted to explain to them how much more alive now he felt, more than he had ever felt before.

But as much as he tried his new body would not let him go down under the lily pad.  He tried and tried, but he could not go down into the water.  At last, he understood.   Their time would come too when they would climb the lily stem and know what he now knew.  His life as a beetle had been fulfilled it had not ended, he did not end.  For awhile he was a little sad that he could not tell his friends to not be afraid.

He understood too that one day they would know this beautiful new world and that they would join him when the time was right.  At last, he took one more look into the water and with a joyful beat of his heart he raised his wings and flew joyously off to join all those who had gone before him into the new life.

Author unknown