A young boy was visiting his mother at the hospital, where she was a nurse. As she was finishing up some paper work, her son wandered into a nearby room. There, the boy saw a woman he had seen on TV before. She was sitting in her bed. The young boy approached the elder. The boy, Sam was only ten. He peered curiously at the old, wealthy businesswoman. “You’re Rose Anderson, aren’t you?” Sam loved asking questions. He said, “Ma’am, you look so sad, and I do not understand. You’re so rich! You have boats, planes, and cars! I watch my parents work extremely hard to provide food for my family, but you don’t even have to work. Please tell me, why are you so sad?”
“Can you guess?” asked the old woman.
“Is it because your family isn’t here?”
“That’s part of it. Keep guessing.”
The young boy was perplexed, but he proceeded cautiously. “Is it because you don’t have any more money?”
“No, sadly. I have plenty of money to last me for more lifetimes. I’ve worked hard all of my life. I’ve worked harder than I should have. I spent more time at work than I did with my family. I spent more time building an empire than I did building a family. My husband has left me, my children resent me, and I am left in this hospital room, dying. I am wealthy, but alone.”
“Oh…” said the young boy. He sat in the room with the woman, quietly listening to the machines keep her alive. Then, the woman looked at him with moist eyes, and said, “The only currency in life is time. Though I am rich with money, you are much more wealthy than I am. You are young, and you will live on longer than me. You are the rich one, for it is time to pay my debt of time.”
I changed a story called "The Rose and the Amaranth." It's a fable by Aesop where the Amaranth, (a never-dying flower) tells the rose how jealous it is of its beauty. The rose replies by saying that though it is beautiful, his life is short. The real wealth lies within the everlasting life of the Amaranth.
"Aesops Fables" book, The Rose and the Amaranth story, oil painting
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I have to say this retelling hit me right in the feels. I love how you created an entirely different story but yet represented the moral in the exact same way. This story makes me want you to continue and make it a happy ending. Like maybe the little boy stays with Rose until her last breath, but she dies happy cause' now she has company? Yeah now that's a perfect and happy ending!
ReplyDeleteSkyler, I really enjoyed this storytelling post! I had never heard of this fable before, so it was fun to read this without any prior knowledge of what the theme of the story was. In my storytelling post, I choose to write about a nursery rhyme that I had grown up reading, did you grow up reading "The Rose and the Amaranth"? I thought this was a really adorable way to represent the meaning. I like that you made this story relatable to the readers by modernizing the story and creating characters that are in a real-life situation, with whom many actually may experience. I definitely look forward to reading more of your storytelling posts in the future!
ReplyDeleteI'm totally with Cindy. You did an amazing job capturing the emotion of the situation and affecting the readers. You had the perfect amount of detail to make the story feel real, yet it was concise enough to easily read. I wanted the story to continue! Like Cindy, it would have been so awesome to see resolution of her loneliness and the boy learning a valuable life lesson. Excellent job! Looking forward to reading more of your stories.
ReplyDeleteWow, that story got me sentimental. You did an amazing job completely retelling the story but still keeping the moral of the story intact. I have to give you props on your creativity of the story and your skill in writing. But I have to agree with your story, even though money can buy materialistic happiness money isn’t always the answer to happiness in life, family is.
ReplyDeleteSkyler, you're killing me with this story. It was so sad, but so good. I love that you made "Rose" a person instead of an actual rose. I thought that was extremely clever of you. Your retelling was great and I'd love to read more from you. This story has such a good message about how even if you're wealthy you can be unhappy and you can be happy without a large amount of money. Great job!
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