The Daughter of the Sun

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

Sixth grade was a year of new teachers, new friends and uniforms that fit me like trashbag clothes. Most predominantly, though, it was a year of writing.

My Language Arts teacher hated when my classmates and I regurgitated the facts that we learned in class in our essays. That’s a big deal because she taught us how to have an opinion instead. She didn’t ban words or silence Socratic debates. She sat back and watched us hound each other for ideas.

I didn’t fully appreciate how incredible that class was until I started high school.

That teacher–my current piano instructor–taught units on POV, Christmas traditions of the past, lifestyles in other states and countries, Roman history and mythology, amazing autobiographies and short stories. We completed two or three vocabulary sheets– and only because they were required by the school. Everything else was a story, a poem, a journey, a piece of artwork, a newspaper or a presentation. She made us think. She made us create.

Toward the end of the year, after a fascinating unit on Cherokee culture, our teacher asked us each to write a story using traditional Cherokee vocabulary and including a definitive moral.

A week later, we presented our stories to the rest of the class. I found my script last week and wanted to share it with you today. My writing style has evolved since writing this piece, but I like the simplicity of it. Can you pick out the moral?

The Daughter of the Sun – The Story of the Four Seasons

O si yo! Hello! The following is the story of how our four seasons came to be, specifically why two are warmer and two are colder, and what happens when you become who you’re supposed to be.

It was a beautiful morning on planet e-lo-hi- planet earth. The nv-da-e-ge-hi father- the sun father, his daughter and his little boy were all enjoying lighting up the morning sky.

The little boy said to his sister, “Look! We are shining so beautifully that we have caused a flower to spring up from the ground, just to see us!” For that reason, the nv-da-e-ge-hi people called the first quarter of the year, the first season, “springtime.”

In the second quarter of the year, the nv-da-e-ge-hi people wanted to shine as brightly and warmly as possible. They shined so brightly and warmly that the children on the surface below came outside to swim in the pool. The nv-da-e-ge-hi people called the second season of the year, “summertime” because “sunniertime” seemed too complicated.

Just before the third quarter of the year, the daughter nv-da-e-ge-hi decided that she was not created to shine brightly. But what was she created to do?

The daughter nv-da-e-ge-hi slept through the third quarter of the year. She turned from yellow to brown and, consequently, the leaves on the trees below turned brown, too, and fell off the trees. For that reason, the nv-da-e-ge-hi people called the third season, “fall.” The nv-da-e-ge-hi father and boy continued to shine through the fall, but the father did not shine quite so bright because he worried about his daughter.

The daughter of the sun became completely frozen in the last quarter of the year because it had been so long since she last shined. She turned white. Frozen tears rained from the clouds- snow. Then, the father realized that his daughter had found her calling as he watched the children below having fun in the snow. He and his son didn’t shine quite as brightly because they didn’t want the snow to melt too quickly. They called this season “winter” because it sounded cold.

The nv-da-e-ge-hi people rejoiced because the daughter realized the joy she brought to the children below by being winter– by being herself.