trevor’s encyclopedia of lost things

We walked down the beach on the wet sand as the tide moved out toward the ocean. 

I held Zeke's hand, and we talked about sea things. 

"I didn't know jelly fish swam this close to the shore during the spring.

I bet that drift wood is as old as 'The Old Man and the Sea.’

I think a horseshoe crab's blood can be used to treat cancer."

"Look," exclaimed.

"What is it?” he asked.

I picked up a shell out of the deep, cool sand and held it in my open hand.

It was unlike any shell we had ever seen. 

There were two shells, one on the top and it's twin on the bottom, connected at the back, and clammed up tightly in the front.

"It's a clam!" I said.

"Is it alive?" he asked.

"I don't know," I answered. 

"Let's take a look and find out."

We took our shovel and made our way to the shore line where the water from the waves ran back to the sea. 

I dug a small hole.

Zeke scratched out a little trench.

We placed the clam into our hand-made sandy water habitat.

We sat quietly.

We watched intently.

Children played around us. 

Families swam in the surf. 

People relaxed in the sun.

Slowly, the clam opened and closed itself, almost imperceptibly, and left a small bubble to show us it was still alive.

"Did you see that? 

It's still living!"

"Wow, we did something nice for that clam," Zeke said. 

"I wonder what nice thing it's going to do for us? 

Maybe it'll make a pearl for us.”

The little clam gave us a pearl, not one we could hold in our hands but one we could hold in our hearts.

It reminded us of something we learned from the great Irish writer George Bernard Shaw. 

He wrote that in a world where the law of the ‘survival of the fittest’ is in effect, where only the strong survive, there is another law in effect, too, the law of the ‘survival of the kindest,’ where the smallest and most forgotten things in the world live out commitment, creativity and compassion (a life force) for the whole world and everyone and every living thing in it.

 Life is in that kindness.

We saw that kindness today. 

We were that kindness for the little clam.