Long ago, in a small town lived a young little boy. He grew up with his mother, his father and his sister, but his favorite person in the whole world was his Uncle. Whenever his uncle would come to visit, he'd tell him stories of the travels he'd taken, the people he had met and sometimes he'd even bring him a souvenir. The boys favorite he'd ever received from his uncle in the whole world, was a dabble of gold heated and molded into a ring that he could slides between his wrists with ease. Etched on the inside "Levitate and Love".
One day though, the little boy and his family received terrible news that his uncle had passed away. The entire family was stricken with grief, but the little boy felt empty. He didn't want to play, he didn't want to walk around the town with his sister playing with the other kids, he barely even wanted to eat.
The day of the funeral the family lowered him into the ground, the rain gently padded against their clothes hiding tear stained cheeks from other viewers. The little boy sat at the grave with the longest, holding his beloved golden ring with his hands until something blipped into existence from the corner of his eye.
He looked and saw a ghostly blue orb, floating in front of him. Shocked he backed away, but as he started the orb blipped out, and then respawns, further away from him. Curious, the little boy mustered up his courage to stand up from the grave. He gave one more look to the gravestone, then started to follow the mysterious orb toward the tree line that met the town at it's edge.
He hesitated when the orb started deeper into the woods, but curiosity found the better of him and he pressed onward, past a quietly babbling stream, deeper into the forest. The orb brought him to a huge tree in the center of the forest, with an upward climb to the mountains above it. Inside the trunk of the tree though is where the finally orb floated, mystic in its place.
The little boy knelt down to the hole of the tree, peering inside. He saw it was nothing more than a fox den, but he noticed something strange inside: A giant tortoise shell, completely empty of the creature and instead filled with different trinkets. Photographs, Jewelry, Toys and even some things he didn't recognize. He looked at his golden ring he clutched in his hands, and decided to place it with the tortoise shell. When he set down his ring, it started to give off a faint, pulsating glow. He backed away quickly and watched with wide-brown eyes as a ethereal wisp slowly made it's way through the hole from within the trunk, and took on the form of a giant tortoise with wise eyes and wide head.
"Why, you're so young.." the tortoise's voice was fragile, like it would break if you tapped a spoon against it their voice would shatter, "Tell me young man, what brings you here?" They knelt down, making eye level with the little boy.
"I-I followed the blue balls floating in the air," he stammered, "A-Are you a spirit?" He asked. The tortoise gave the boy a slow nod, a smile against his wrinkled face.
"I am, but don't worry child. You were led to me for a reason-- that's why you placed your ring against my shell."
"That ring was my uncle's.. He gave it to me on one of his trips where he spends weeks away from home. But.." The little boy sniffled and tears began to whell in his eyes.
"It's okay, young man. It will continue to hurt for as long as you live," The tortoise replied, and the little boy hicced as he broke down.
"How is that supposed to help me feel better?!" He cried. The tortoise gently lowered their head to greet the young boy with a kind smile.
"It isn't meant to. You'll always miss your uncle, but eventually as you grow, so does your life, and the impact of their death becomes less intense even though it still hurts."
"How do you know?" The little boy wiped his eyes in frustration and jolted up from his kneeling position, wanting nothing more than to take his ring back from the tortoise and go back to his uncle's gravesite.
"Why, I lost a dear friend to me, a long time ago." The tortoise responded. The little boy's eyes widened and he sat back down, hugging his knees to his chest.
"You did?" He asked, and the tortoise nodded in response.
"Yes, in fact we'd had known one another since we were children. He was the first person I actually met when I hatched."
"You remember when you were first born?" The little boy now intrigued scooted closer to them.
"I did indeed. The young kit mistook me for a pebble, and carried me to this very spot for his mother's nest. By the time I hatched, we were almost into the den and I thought I was going to be eaten! But the kit saw me before he made his way down the fox hole, and he took me home where he found me." The tortoise's voice chimed through the air as they recalled their childhood.
"Was your mom mad?" The little boy asked.
"She was worried sick, but not mad because the kit was only a bit older than I. She was grateful he brought me back to her. From that point, the kit and I became inseparable."
"That sounds like my uncle and I! Except he didn't take me away from my momma." the little boy hugged his knees closer to himself as he let out a weak giggle.
"Eventually we both got older, and he would be gone for a day at a time. Since I was too slow, I couldn't come with him, but he'd always come back with something interesting he had found while hunting for food. Why one time, he brought me back a strange hollow rock with a funny smell, and another time he brought me back a white feather." They smiled.
"Did you keep them?"
"Of course, they're still in the den with my shell."
"So then what happened?" The boy asked.
"Ah, he met a Vixen-- a wonderful lady she was. While he was out for a day or so at a time, she would stay here and keep me company. It was wonderful being friends with the two of them-- and by next season she had three beautiful kits of their own."
"Did they have names??" The little boy smiled, thinking about the baby kits playing around the den while the tortoise watched.
"We all did-- Henry, Abbey, their three kits Asher, Axel and Trunks, and me, Flora." the tortoise replied. The little boy smiled imagining the odd family of foxes and a tortoise living happily where he he was sitting, but his smile faded.
"This story doesn't have a happy ending, does it?" The little boy frowned. The tortoise simple knelt their head down, and gently tapped their head against the boys.
"Tragic things sometimes happen, yes. Henry after another season didn't come back from his hunt one day. Days went by, Abbey even went searching for him."
"Didn't you want to help her find him??"
"Even if I wanted to, I'd have only slowed her down. But I was more than happy to stay with her kits until she returned. Eventually though, she gave up, and focused her care around Asher Axel and Trunks."
"Did he ever come back?"
The tortoise gently shook their head, "We never found out what happened to Henry, but Abbey and I presumed the worst since he was nowhere to be found. But the seasons change, and time went on. Asher grew to be a strong hunter, Axel helped Abbey with the den and Trunks would go with Asher to make sure he didn't meet the same fate as their father and mysteriously vanish."
"Did it work, going with him?"
"For as long as they lived here, yes. But when Abbey passed away they went on to make dens of their own."
"They left you?!" The little boy cried, but the tortoise simply chuckled.
"They had their own lives to lead and adventures to make, and I proud of them for the wonderful dogs and vixen they grew into." The tortoise smiled, as if looking past the boy and watching their life scroll by like a classic film.
"So.. then what happened?"
"They would come to visit me every season, but as they got older, they started coming less and less, till eventually not at all. Some of their own kits would come to visit, but after their parents stopped coming, so did they."
"Did they pass away too?"
The tortoise wore a somber smile and nodded, "They did. What I didn't know back when Henry mistook me for a pebble, was that Foxes and Galapagos have a much different lifespan from one another. While several generations of foxes can pass along--"
"You'll still be here.. So you've seen a lot of friends you care about pass away.. How did you handle them dying?" The little boy tried to hide his whelling eyes while he spoke to the tortoise, but they passed no judgement on the little boy.
"Everyone and everything, eventually passes-- there's nothing we can do to stop it. When it does happen though, it feels like the deepest pain you've ever felt, but hollow. As time goes forward though, so does your life. The things you see, the people you meet and the sounds you'll hear. As you live more of your life, you'll still look back at the friend and family you grieved, but you'll also see how you've grown around the grief and their death."
The little boy sighed and wiped his tears away, "but that's so far away, how do I make it hurt less now?"
The tortoise's gentle smile flipped to a knowing frown, being familiar with the little boy's pain.
"Allowing yourself to let grief exit from you freely, and once that wave of grief dispels it will come back again, but it'll be a little easier to handle."
The little boy nodded, and stood up and looked around, seeing the sky past the trees painted the most vivid shades of orange pink and purple he'd ever seen. "I should probably go home, the sun is setting and Momma doesn't like me out past dark.. Thank you Mrs. Tortoise."
"Please, young man. Call me Flora." The tortoise replied warmly, and slowly their spirit disapated, slowly seeping back into the hole of the tree. The little boy, feeling a little less lonely smiled and looked around the tree. As he did the mysterious blue orb that first blipped into existence while he sat alone at the gravestone reappeared, and he followed it back across the stream and back to the edge of the forest where he was reunited with the town's perimeter. When he got back he had realized he forgot his beloved ring, but didn't go back for it, he simply gave a weak smile of the memory of his uncle and knelt down to his uncle's gravestone.
"I'll never forget you for as long as I live." The boy replied before hugging the gravestone for the longest time. He didn't let go till the sun was surrounded by a crimson sky with the night dangerously pressing forward. Finally, the little boy went home to his family feeling more peace than before.
© Andy McCallister