Have you ever questioned your look? Or perhaps doubted your identity? This was raised to me by my then eight-year-old son years ago. The same question the crooked tree raised. Let us all read the two stories below.
The Crooked Tree
MOMI LEARNS| Be happy with what you are
It was a dense forest. All trees were straight and tall.
Their trunks were broad and shapely. But, there was one tree which was having a crooked and shapeless trunk.
The crooked trunk tree was sad. He thought “How ugly I am! All others are straight and shapely. I alone have crooked trunk.”
One day a woodcutter came there. He looked around and said “I will cut all trees here, except that crooked tree. That is of no use to me”.
He cut away all other trees.
Now, the crooked tree was happy for its crookedness.
The boy with the straight hair
Firstborn and Second Son got the curly and messy version of husband’s hair while our Big Bunso got the straight version of my hair. Plain and simple.
That hair issue though has become a major concern for Big Bunso. He even questioned the legitimacy of his identity. Husband, who could sometimes be so playful, teased our then eight-year-old boy and mentioned we only got him from the garbage.
Little did we know that our boy would buy his father’s story. He approached me one day and said, “Am I really adopted? I checked my birth certificate and saw I got papa’s surname. I also checked some of our photos and I think we look alike.”
The Facebook status I posted last January 2013 so my Big Bunso will stop questioning his identity.
For that reason, I posted on my Facebook status a picture of my four-year-old self side-by-side my then three-year-old Big Bunso. I reassured him that he is our son and he came from me. “Look, we almost look the same!” I told him.
Lesson from The Crooked Tree and The Boy with the Straight Hair
Be happy with what you are.
Sometimes, we question our identity just because we feel so different. But honestly, it is not what we have or who we are that makes us happy. Often, it is what we think about it. The best way to counter such negative thought is to be thankful for the blessings we got. And in the case of our Big Bunso, never doubt your identity 🙂
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