Can a Coconut Tell a Story?

A few years ago, we took a trip to Polynesia. It started in Tahiti and ended in Easter Island, with stops at various islands and atolls along the way. At one point in this marvelous adventure, I saw a single coconut floating by in the vast Pacific Ocean. It intrigued me. I wondered where it was going, and whether it would make it to its destination, any destination where it could grow. So I took a photograph of this piece of life drifting by. It's not exactly a stunning photograph, but I like it for what it represents, the struggle to survive.

Its chances of survival didn't look too promising, but if the currents were friendly and it ultimately got thrown onto a beach, it could possibly make it. We saw evidence of this on an uninhabited atoll that we explored. There were several young coconut trees thriving at the edge of the beach. One coconut germinated, sending up a small shoot. It gave me hope that the coconut that I saw in the middle of the ocean might just make it some day.

This little one, and all the rest who survived the perils of the ocean, might one day make more coconuts, which would beget more and more coconut trees that would thrive and prosper to form a large, cohesive grove.

This tale of the coconut reads like a child's story. But in these times of struggle against forces of nature, and man's inhumanity to man, it is our persistence, strength, determination, cooperation and a little bit of luck that might be the answer to get us through to a better world to live in.