Aisha and The Lioness

ONCE UPON A TIME in a poor and desolate African village, a little girl named Aisha lived with her mother and father. For seven years, Aisha was the happiest girl in the world.

Then one day Aisha’s mother became ill with a persistent dry cough, and soon after died. Aisha was the saddest girl in the world. She wandered the hilltops dreaming of her mother, imagining her mother’s voice, her mother’s smile, the sweet scent of her mother’s skin, the food her mother cooked, the fabrics she wove, the big car she drove, and the long hours she spent trying to pump water from the nearly dry well.

One day Aisha’s father embraced his daughter and whispered a secret. “I am going to marry again. You will love Makeda. Her two daughters will be like sisters to you. You need no longer be so sad.”

When Makeda and her daugh­ters moved into Aisha’s home, Aisha’s world felt turned upside down. Makeda was lovely, and the girls, just a few years older than Aisha, called her sister. But their affection seemed forced, and when Aisha closed her eyes, she saw her mother’s eyes, and she couldn’t imagine ever feeling truly loved again.

Makeda wasn’t like her mother. When Makeda cooked supper, she didn’t set aside a special dish of kinyasi for Aisha. When she put the girls to bed, she did not sing Aisha to sleep. Makeda didn’t wrap her arms around Aisha or whisper secrets to her or laugh the way her mother had laughed, or cook her favorite meals or buy her lots of toys and candy.

Aisha decided one afternoon to visit her grandmother, and when she was there, she looked at her grandmother and said, “My stepmother loves her own daughters more than she loves me! Makeda doesn’t love me at all. In fact, I think she hates me.”

“Nonsense!! Anyone would love a girl like you,” her grandmother scowled, waving her away.

Aisha shook her head. “I am not her child by blood. She will never love me the way my mother loved me.” Tears began to well up in her eyes.

“Perhaps she needs a love potion,” her grandmother smirked.

Aisha’s eyes lit up. “Of course! That’s what I need.”

Her grandmother leaned forward and whispered, “It is a very difficult potion to make.”

But Aisha was desperate. “Please, make me this potion, old woman. I will do anything.”

Her grandmother’s eyes sparkled. “There is one ingredient that is very difficult to obtain. To make such a potion, I need the whisker of a lioness!!!”

Aisha would do anything to feel the love she had once felt wrapped in her mother’s arms, so she put on some boots and set off in search of a lioness. She walked through the spare countryside, and after she had hiked a while, she saw in the distance a lone lioness, sleeping beneath a tree. “Poor thing,” she thought. “She is just like me. All alone in the world.”

She slowly walked closer, careful to be quiet. Then she sat behind a bush, waiting for the lioness to wake.

When the lioness woke she let out a low roar from deep in her belly, long and slow. Aisha smiled and whispered, “Such a beautiful sound.” Aisha watched the lioness for a long, long time, studying her face and the way she moved. Then she quietly stood up and walked back home.

The next day Aisha returned to the same spot. This time she brought along a big piece of raw meat. While the lioness slept, Aisha tossed the meat by her, then hurried to her hiding place and waited. When the lioness woke, she sniffed the meat and walked quickly toward it. She gobbled it down, then lifted her head and sniffed the air. The lioness sensed Aisha’s presence, and the little girl felt her heart flutter. She remained as still as a stone, and before long the lioness ambled down to the river to quench her thirst.

The next day Aisha came again, and again she brought along a big piece of meat. This time when she tossed it to the lioness, the creature turned her head and gazed across the stretch of wilderness at Aisha. Aisha thought she might be dreaming, but it seemed to her that the lioness offered a nod, as if greeting the girl.

Day after day, instead of attending school, Aisha spent long hours visiting the lioness. Each day she brought more meat, and each day she moved a little closer. Days turned to weeks, weeks to months. After seventeen months, Aisha felt some confidence, and she moved closer still. The lioness seemed to smile at her.

Each day as Aisha moved closer, the lioness appeared to relax. Aisha wondered aloud, “Perhaps she is comforted by my presence.”

One day Aisha crawled slowly forward. When she was very near, she tossed the lioness some steak tips. As the lioness ate, Aisha reached out and yanked a big whisker from the lioness. The lioness roared, and with a mighty swipe of her razor-sharp claws, she batted Aisha to the ground, then took her little body into her strong jaws and shook it like a ragdoll.

The next day, word of the tragedy spread throughout the village. Dozens of villagers gathered to lay Aisha to rest. Aisha’s grandmother threw herself upon her granddaughter’s tiny casket and wailed. Makeda and her daughters admitted that they actually did love Aisha all along, but they thought she hated them because for the past seventeen months, she was rarely ever home, except to sleep.

The whole thing was a classic case of misunderstanding. The moral of the story is that you don't need the whisker of a lioness to know if your family loves you. Send this message of love along to everyone you know!

The Mayonnaise Jar

When things in your life seem almost too much to handle, when 24 hours in a day are not enough, remember the mayonnaise jar...and the two cups of coffee...

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, wordlessly, he picked up a very large jar of mayonnaise and proceeded to stuff it with golf balls. The mayonnaise overflowed and slowly dripped down the sides of the jar. The students were flabbergasted with confusion.

He then asked the students if the jar was full. They reluctantly agreed that it was. So the professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. By now, the room was filled with the sharp scent of the mayonnaise.

He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was. The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with a unanimous and impatient "yes."

The professor then produced two cups of scalding hot coffee from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar. The students laughed loudly.

"Now," said the professor, as the laughter subsided, "I want you to recognize that this jar of mayonnaise represents your life. The golf balls are the important things—your spouse, your children, your house, your car, your bank account, and your favorite possessions—things that if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full. The pebbles are the other things that matter…like food, water, your co-workers, your television, your landlord, your motorcycle, or your pets. The mayonnaise represents all of your life's decisions, both good and bad. Now the sand—that is a reminder that when we die, we shall return to the earth from whence we came." The students grew uncomfortable and fidgeted in their seats. The professor then emptied the entire contents of the mayonnaise jar into a large metal tray lined with tinfoil. He stood there motionless, staring blankly at the goopy mess.

One of the students timidly raised her hand and inquired what the two cups of coffee represented. The professor smiled sadly, a tear welling up in his eye. He took a deep breath and struggled to speak despite the rising lump in his throat. "I'm glad you asked," he began haltingly, "the coffee represents the time, ten years ago, when my wife called me from a local restaurant and asked me to meet her for coffee on my lunch break. I told her that I was just too busy—maybe some other time. Well, as she left the restaurant that day, her car was hit head-on by a cement truck. She died instantly." The professor broke down into a heap of desperate sobs. He was unable to complete his lesson for the day. His students gathered around him and formed a warm living cocoon of love and understanding. There was not a dry eye in the room.

The moral of this story is that no matter what tragedies life hands us, there will always be people who will hope to attempt to try to imagine that they think they understand what we are going through. Send this message of hope along to everyone you know!