Come to think of it, my family had a turtle. The story is quite funny. The first time I met him was when me and my family visited our grandparents from my father in the city. We visit our grandparents regularly every week and usually on the weekends. One day, my grandmother walked past the living room and went outside while holding some food. I don't remember what food it was but it was probably fruit. She was around 70 years old so she could only eat soft and not too sweet food. It was around 4 p.m. so the rest of the family was watching shows on TV in the living room. While we were watching, I was bored of the show, I wanted to check my grandmother and so I walked outside. My grandmother was there, throwing the food she brought earlier while also munching on some. At that time, I was like, "Grandma, why are u throwing the food?! You are wasting it!" and my grandma replied, "Come here, I'll show you something. Sit beside me here." We waited for a while, and well, I didn't even know what was I doing there, just waiting for my grandma's next command.
Outside of the house, we had a garden full of plants; orchids, rambutan fruit tree, mango and starfruit, so it was nice and I was tempted to reap some since there were some fruits that are ready to be reaped. After a while, she yelled at me, "There, there, look at that!" She pointed at a certain place under the plants and then I saw a shell-like thing moving slowly. It was dark and I couldn't see it clearly. After a while, it finally came out, and voila! It was a turtle. First thing that came to my mind was, "What the h*ll is that thing doing in here! Hiding in the garden, eating fruits from my grandma even!" My grandma told me that he has been here long before I was even born, but not too long; probably like two or three years before I was born. He didn't have a name so we could only call him by whistling or just making "shh shh" sound directed to the garden and he would come out. Well, I was a child, I didn't have the guts to pet him so I was just watching it from afar; watching my grandma petting him. It was then I realize that we have to be grateful for anything that's ever given to us. Anything at all.
My grandma wasn't a super rich person in the city although she lives in the capital city of the country. She was sincere, kind, sometimes moody and would never hesitate to show or express that she's upset to someone. That experience taught me that you should give back to nature whatever nature has given to you even when you don't feel or have enough for yourself. Something like, "You should give back to the community you are in".
Growing up, I had several pets: fish, cricket and cat. Only left with cat now since I went to study abroad and no one would take care of the fish and the cricket due to the maintenance and everyone was somewhat busy, had to let them go. My interest in fish was initiated from watching betta fish fight but I didn't want my fish to fight; I just want them to live happily in a tank but it didn't go well because the nature of betta fish. They will become aggressive when they're faced with other betta fish. My father then bought me a different type of fish, gold fish. Just like my memory, I grew up with them. Gold fish memory. Then there's cricket. It was a short memory made with them but it was nice. We had a problem in our house that rats would get into action when it's past 12 a.m and one of the ways to prevent them was to have the sound of crickets all over the place. Not necessarily ALL of the house, only the garage, since that's where the rats would come from. It did prevent the rats and was quite nice for a week. But a week after, we didn't hear any sound of them and one by one we found the crickets lying on the floor, already dead. I think the environment wasn't feasible for them to live in so it was game over. Truly sorry crickets. Then there's cat. Petting cats has taught me to be nice to anyone even to animals. They won't give you a feedback, no, never. Well, probably when they would come to you and massage your toes or calf. But hey! You don't stop giving them your love!
That's what has shaped me as a person; started with my grandma that'd always give food to her turtle which then initiated me, her grandchild, to have a pet, and practice what my grandma has taught me. I'm sure there are a lot of things that has shaped me as well from my childhood experiences but this one is what really defines me as a person throughout my 20s years old.
I don't know, maybe we really should do this retrospective thingy so that we can find ourselves and find what you were made of. Heart. Mind. Soul.
Adios!
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