A bee without its stinger.

As I was walking home from school today I bypassed a bee on the ground that was flustered and looked as if it did not have enough strength in itself to maneuver into the air. I slowed my pace and stared at it wondering if I should put it out of its misery. It has lost its stinger.

When a bee has used its stinger, it dies. You would think it used its stinger for something important, like protecting itself or protecting something that mattered to it. The bee must had accepted its death, but it kept wanting to fly. Does a bee know once it has used its stinger that it will surely die? Maybe not. Maybe they do. We may never know. But what I do know is that this bee was fighting for its life and tried its hardest to lift its legs off from the gravel.

For some reason, I thought of cancer, which (sadly in many cases) can assure a death sooner than later. When this bee lost its stinger, it gained cancer. It was going to die.

Luckily for humans, there are way to fight cancer and everyday we a progressing our technology to save the lives of people who have been given a very short time to live (so say the doctors).

What if I got cancer? Would I mope, depress myself and die...or would I be like the bee and fight to fly again?

That bee taught me something very important today. Even when your days are numbered, until your final hour has struck you can still fly, you can still fight to live, for you are still alive. The bee still had its wings, and I have the will.