Thor and Dianna

Thor and Dianna are survivors.
They both have a survivor story, one that at the heart of every survivor story reveals two things: the soul perseveres through dire circumstances and rises above that which could have once destroyed. It is here, I must pause to tell you that human beings are not the only survivors because Thor and Dianna are turtles, who lives in my sister’s pond in New Jersey. Here’s Thor’s story. A few years ago, on one of New Jersey’s crazy winter freeze, my sister grew worried about her seventeen fish and two turtles that called her pond home. The snow fell, hardened and turned to ice. The opaque white ice eventually sealed the pond, trapping all life beneath. It remained sealed for a much longer time that spring. When the pond thawed, seventeen fish and one turtle floated to the top. All of them died, leaving the life of the other turtle a mystery. For days the turtle remained unseen, until one day my sister spotted it sunbathing on a rock in the pond. He was a superhero and a survivor. It was that spring he earned both a place in my sister’s heart and his name, Thor.

Dianna’s story emerged a few years later after a friend’s grandmother died, and he purchased a turtle in a memorandum of his dearly beloved. The turtle lived confined in a bucket for several years until one day, he asked if the turtle could live with Thor in the pond. My sister said yes, and my niece and nephew named the turtle Dianna. Thor and Dianna lived their lives through enriching rituals: swimming in the pond, fetching food to eat, sunbathing on rocks, and diving beneath into the dark water to cool off when the summer sun showed no mercy. These rituals only seized one day when Dianna disappeared. Speculations about Dianna’s disappearance swirled around in abundance, but the children finally computed that Dianna was abducted and possibly killed by an extremely large bird. A small ceremony was held at the pond’s edge in honor of Dianna.

It was a year and a half since Dianna’s disappearance, so yesterday when my niece and nephew ran with delight to tell my sister Dianna was back, she tried chilling their excitement with her adultlike calculations. They saw what she did not and could not submit to her logic and eventually, their childlike enthusiasm crept through the cracks of her certainty. She walked behind their skip and prance to the pond – where in fact, to her surprise there were two turtles in the pond: Thor and Dianna. The speculations and questions of her sudden return remain a conundrum but what is certain is this: she must have been trapped beneath a rock or something heavy because there are layers upon layers of green moss on her back, and there is a large, deep crack in her shell. She also did not starve because she is much larger than Thor and according to my niece and nephew, our sweet Dianna might be pregnant.

Thor and Dianna are survivors, and they are back to their rituals in the pond – swimming, eating and sunbathing. There is wisdom in nature and in the lives of animals with whom we breathe the same air and share this captivating world.

You can survive this!

Don’t be a ghost, share your thoughts below.

Kadine Christie