A few years ago, on a cold winter evening, I was having dinner with some good friends. One of them told us a sad story about something that had happened the day before. Her sons friend was in his mid-twenties and self-employed. He lived on the second floor of a house nearby. Someone who lived on the first floor had been smoking and fell asleep. The house burned down. Although everyone was safe, the house was completely destroyed with everything in it.

All this young man had were the clothes on his back and his pickup truck. He had no family in the area and nowhere to go. My friend was putting him up for a few days until he could decide what to do next.

Those of us sitting at the dinner table felt sympathetic for the young man. Everyone started opening their wallets to contribute money. My friend stopped us and told us he would not accept money. All he wanted was a warm coat and some other used clothing. We were all more than happy to fulfill this request and were told that he wore a size 3XL. None of us knew men who wore such an unusual size, so it was going to be a challenge to take care of this quickly.

But it was a typically cold New York winter, and I couldn’t imagine him without a coat. So even though I had fifteen people coming to dinner on the coming weekend, and I had many things to do for the big party, I decided to look for a coat in a size that was difficult to find.

I got dressed and went to the thrift shop (旧货店) the next morning. I was there when it opened at nine. I went through every coat and jacket but found nothing even close to what I needed. As I headed toward the exit, I considered trying to find something in a department store, but it would be expensive, and I had no time to shop.

Just as I was about to leave the shop, the shopkeeper who was tall and strong came out of the storehouse.

I took the coat, thanked the kind shopkeeper and left the thrift shop.

People use the proverb “seeing is believing” to describe situations where it’s hard to believe something is possible if you haven’t seen it happen. I am here today to tell you that the proverb is true and to share with you how a girl and her grandmother made a positive transformation in a community.

It was a year ago when I was studying life cycles in my science class. I wrote a paper about the life cycle of the monarch butterfly (帝王蝶) and received a perfect score. I was so thrilled; I called my grandmother Nana and told her the exciting news. My talk recalled memories from Nana’s childhood. “I remember when I was a girl,” she said, “those orange and black butterflies were a common sight. Come late summer, there would suddenly be hundreds of them, and before long there were so many it felt like you were standing in an orange cloud.”

“It sounds like you witnessed a migration (迁徙), but what happened to them?” I asked. “To be honest, I’ve never known,” Nana admitted. “But there do seem to be fewer monarchs around the neighborhood.” Nana and I decided to investigate.

That weekend, we met at the public library. Our research produced plenty of information: some fascinating and some concerning. Apparently, the number of monarchs has been in decline for the last several decades. Housing developments have destroyed much of their habitat (栖息地). Some information was hopeful, though, like how conservationists are working to save them.

The best was this — it doesn’t take lots of money or equipment to do so. It takes only a little bit of land, some seeds, and dedicated people to create what’s called a Monarch Waystation (驿站).

“What if we set up our own Monarch Waystation?” I suggested. “We’ll need people to help.” Nana responded immediately and didn’t waste time to get started.

The next day, Nana presented the idea to her garden club and I talked to my friends.

Nana and I created a blog and frequently updated about the community’s efforts.

Broken seashells

It was the summer in mid-July at the Jersey shore. My four-year-old son Will and I just loved heading off to the beach just before dinner when the rest of the vacationers seemed to be leaving for the day. The sun was still hot then and shining brightly.

Bucket in hand, we’d hit the sand and start our adventure. Will would run so quickly to the edge of the water and be soaked before I got there, laughing as the waves crashed and nearly knocked him down. We usually walked along the edge of the water, looking for seashells to fill our red sandcastle-shaped bucket. Some days, the bucket was full, and other days just a few shells made it into the bucket.

On this particular day, there didn’t seem to be too many shells washed up on the shore. Will began picking up whatever shells he saw lying in the sand. After a while, I peered into the bucket and saw nothing but broken shells. “Will, all of these shells are broken and no good. You need to find shells like this,” I explained, as I held up a perfectly shaped clamshell. Will gave me a puzzled look and continued on his way, gathering whatever shells he came across and dropping them into the bucket.

I continued my search for some time, and then stopped to watch him drop more broken shells into the bucket. Again, I stopped, but this time I asked in a stricter voice, “Will, why do you insist on filling our bucket with shells that are broken?” He looked up at me through his glasses with his big blue eyes and replied, “Mom, there are way more shells on the beach that are broken than perfect ones that you are searching for. We’ll get the bucket filled faster with the broken ones.” True, I thought, but who wants a bucketful of broken shells? Will stared at me as if he knew what I was thinking. “Mom, these shells are broken, but they are still beautiful,” he explained.

He began pulling the shells from the bucket and commenting on their uniqueness.

Back home, I decided to preserve the moment of realization with Will.