This is a story about a girl and a Gardener.
One day, walking along a road, the girl finds a root on the dirt at her feet. She picks it up, brushes it off, and decides to plant it. She keeps walking, waiting for just the right patch of ground to plant it in. She stops when she sees a Gardener in the distance and decides if this dirt is good enough for him, it's good enough for her. So she digs in the dirt, packs in the root, and waits.
And she keeps waiting, waiting and hoping. She's seen plants in bloom along the way. She doesn't understand why hers won't, especially because it's so close to the Gardener's ground. She
loses heart little by little as she watches and waits.
The girl spends years bending over that dirt,
waiting for something to sprout. Then one day, she stops. She looks
up and finds the Gardener close by, watching her with kindness in his
eyes, and for the first time in a long time, she sees him, really sees him.
Then,
carefully she pulls out the dead root from the patch of ground,
slowly stands up, and takes it to him. He accepts it from her
quietly and as soon as it's in his hand, it's gone. Disappeared.
She stares at his hand, empty, and at his face, unmoved. She wants
to ask why, but something about his face tells her it doesn't matter.
Some questions aren't meant to be answered. Then she sees a change
in his eyes. A smile sneaking out. He offers her his hand, “I
want to show you something.”
Hesitantly, she puts her hand in his
and walks beside and a little behind him as he leads her over a small
hill along the path. When they reach the crest of the hill, she
clutches her hand to her mouth and breathes in a sharp gasp of air as
she looks upon a sight more beautiful than anything she had ever
seen. Flowers of every kind, every color, fill the space below. Petals moving in the wind
like waves, breathtaking. A symphony of shades and shimmer, as if
rejoicing over a deep and settled stillness. He squeezes her hand,
delighted by the shock on her face.
“You...did this?” she stammers with
wide eyes.
“I've been waiting a long time to
show you,” he answers.
“I've never seen anything like it,”
she exclaims. “I've never even dreamed of such beauty.”
He lets her take it all in, breathe in the sweet flower scent, then says almost in a whisper, “It's yours. I've been planting it
for you.”
She looks at him in disbelief, brow
furrowed, quietly shaking her head. “No. I can't.” She looks
away, towards the mesmerizing scene in front of her. “This is
yours. It belongs to you. I can't take it.”
“Yes,” he says gently, waiting
until her eyes meet his. “Yes. It's mine. And you will never
know my delight in giving it to you.”
“I don't understand,” she says as
tears form in her eyes.
“All those years you spent tending
that root, I watched and waited. I knew you would walk away from it
if I asked you to, but I also knew that until you walked away from it
on your own, it would stay a part of you.”
“But it wasn't a bad root. It could
have been beautiful, if only it had grown.” She looks at the
ground, trying to keep the twinge of bitterness out of her voice.
“It could have been beautiful, for a
time.” He is quiet for a moment. “But you couldn't see what I could
see.” He looks her in the eyes and says, “I saw a girl tangled up
in her root. It could have been a beautiful bloom, but a root like
that is bound to die.”
She closes her eyes, knowing what he says
is true, seeing it clearly for the first time. After a few moments
of letting the weight of his words sink in, she asks, “Why are you
giving me this?”
“I'm giving you this because I'm the
Gardener," he said, joy clear on his face. "This is what I do. And I know how much you love beauty.”
“What if I get tangled up in the
roots again?” she asks, concerned.
He answers, “The beauty you see
here, that's yours. The roots are mine.”
