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Saturday, September 22, 2012

Big Fish

You know the old story...A man goes fishin', only to return with tales about the whopping size of the fish he caught.  "It was a big fish!" In reality, it was probably the tiniest minnow, IF a fish was even caught at all.
It's the exaggeration.
The embellishment.

There was once a movie with the same title, Big Fish.  In the movie, a young boy listens to the unbelievable tales his father shares.  Stories you would never, in a million years, believe.  Giants, Siamese twins, etc.  As the boy grows into a man, his father's stories don't have that same sense of fantasy and start to become lies instead.  In many ways, the son begins to resent his father for the far-out stories that he has told over the years. Until...
His father passes away.  At the funeral, there to bid farewell...the characters in the stories the son thought to be figments of his father's wild imagination.  Real people.  Real stories, after all.

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You might know someone who likes to tell these bizarre tales.  They share of people they've seen, people they've spoken with, places they've been... You can never quite figure out where the real story ends and the imagination begins.

My question is...

Why would you want to?

Yesterday, Rick was telling me about his and the girls' daily walk.  (I should write a book about their walks, by the way!)  Apparently, when they got to a stretch of farmland that hadn't been mowed in months, he and the girls were attacked by, in Rick's words, "like 50,000 grasshoppers!!"  Rick said they were jumping on his head.  They were jumping in the wagon with the girls (Yes, it still has the duck-taped umbrella!).  Grasshoppers surrounded them and jumped on them from every angle.  He kept yelling to Gabriella, "Just keep your mouth closed!"  A scene from a movie, right?

So, when I woke Gabriella from her nap, I couldn't wait to hear her account of the grasshopper fiasco.  I didn't want her to relive a traumatic situation, but I had to know, "Gabriella, tell me about your walk.  Mommy wants to know about all the grasshoppers!"

Gabriella:  We went on a walk, Mommy!
 Me:  Tell me about the grasshoppers!
Gabriella:  We saw two.

Two?  What happened to the 50,000?!  The swarm jumping in, out, over, and under?!

 
What is it that this little duo sees when they look out the window?  What is it this little duo, along with the twins, sees when they go on walks?
Well, I'm going to choose to believe that Gabriella just hasn't quite mastered her concept of numbers, yet, and if Rick says they fought a battle with 50,000 of nature's hoppiest, then I believe him.

It's the exaggeration.
The embellishment.
 Real people.
Real stories, after all.

I see God in big fish tales that really do happen, that really do exist.  I hope you do, too.

Love, 
Mary
 


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