When the water gets hot....

A frog, when placed in water that heats slowly over time, will adjust to the water, and eventually burn. I don’t really have a point to this statement, but it is a lasting memory from my high school biology class, and it does remind me of a fable from long ago.
A young woman sat in the kitchen of her mother’s home. The mother nervously took care of her daily tasks while listening to daughter weep. The mother, filled with the angst from her daughter’s pain, brought carrots up from the root cellar, eggs from the back porch, and coffee from the cupboard.
She silently lit the stove and placed three pans of water over the fire. The daughter continued rocking backward and forward, pouring out her grief. As steam arose and rolling tumult escaped the tops of the pans, the mother place carrots in one, eggs in another, and ground coffee in the third. She sat and held her daughter’s hands in hers with a silent and heavy heart.
After 20 minutes, the mother walked to the stove, placed the carrots and eggs on a plate, and fixed the young woman a cup of coffee. The smell of coffee already wafted through the tiny kitchen and the daughter held the steaming cup against her chin and inhaled deeply. As she inhaled the pungent aroma, she allowed slow exhales through her mouth. As her spirit calmed, her mother began to speak.
Carrots are strong, hard, and unrelenting. When they face the adversity of boiling water, they undergo change. With the adversity behind them the carrots are left soft and weak.
Eggs were submerged in the merciless conditions with a thin, fragile outer shell to protect the liquid inside. After enduring the water, they came through looking the same on the outside, but hardened on the inside.
Coffee had a unique quality, however. When the ground coffee beans were subjected to the same adversity as the carrots and the eggs, the beans changed the water – they gave it richness and flavor.
Now, if I were to tell this tale in a tenth grade English class, I would probably end the story by asking students to reflect and write on whether they are carrots that when faced with pain become soft and lose strength. Are they eggs that start with fluid spirits and after grief and trials, become stiff and hard? Do their shells look the same, but on the insides they have a hardened hearts?
Or, lastly, I would ask students if they are like the coffee bean that changes the very circumstances that bring the pain, release fragrance and flavor.
I mused on this literary assignment and decided that maybe the leading response to this story, that we should be coffee, and use adversity to create good is somewhat naive. While we would like to affect change in the aftermath of our tragedies, a journey must ensue.
In reflection, I think we should cut up those soft carrots, chop the eggs, add tortellini, fresh parmesan, a warm olive oil dressing and call it salad because emerging from grief and pain is not that simple. In order to recover from tragedy, we must give ourselves permission to become weak at times. Adversity hurts, and through that hurt, sometimes we have to suck it up on the outside, and hold tight on the inside.
Different circumstances call for different reactions, emotions, and responses to adversity in our lives.
At the end of the day, we want to be coffee and affect change in the world around us, but that takes time and a journey through seasons of weakness and seasons of strength because we are not frogs, and we can get through the tough times to come out on the other side.