It was sad to see the old man, he was so unhappy. I'm told he used to be a gardener.
Roses, that was his thing. I never really
understood why he stopped growing them. He only grew two that I knew of. I guess maybe he was pricked too many times by
the thorns. That is the funny thing about a rose - they are so beautiful,
but you always have to watch out for the thorns.
The first was nine years ago. It was a rose that was growing wild in a field. Everyday the
gardener would admire the rose, but
would never take a really close look at it. He fell in love with the rose and finally decided it
was time to put it in his yard.
When he got near enough to smell its deep bouquet, he knew that he would never be the same again.
From the day the single
rose went into his garden, he was the happiest man in the world.
Everyday he would sit in the garden talking to his rose,
watering it, nurturing it to maturity and never wanting anything in his life
but that one single rose. He felt so close to the rose that
he thought it was talking back to him.
It would tell him how much it enjoyed being cared for by the gardener, how it could never
live anywhere else.
To the gardener, this rose was his life - his only reason for living.
It was a beautiful spring. The most beautiful that the gardener could ever remember. The rose
was more beautiful this spring
than it had been in the entire year past.
One night a storm blew through town. The wind and rain didn't stop for hours and the gardener
was afraid. He was afraid for
the beautiful, lone rose that he had tried so hard to care for.
The next morning he found it. It was laying in a puddle of muddy water that looked like blood in
the early sun. He cried. So
many tears came from his eyes that he couldn't see and his eyes began to sting.
For the next few days, he cared for the rose. Once again talking to it, watering it,
trying to nurture it back to health. It was futile.
The rose was dead, but he couldn't bring himself to throw it away. He placed the rose in a book
and the book on a shelf, so he
always knew where he could find it.
If he ever felt sad, he could just open the book and look at the rose. He would remember how
beautiful it was, how he cared
for it, how he believed that the rose loved him also. He said he could never grow a
rose again as beautiful as this first.
After a few years he realized that he was still a gardener; he couldn't stop
because of one dead rose. He would try to grow a
different type of flower.
Over the next few years he tried many flowers, but his skills as a gardener must have been poor,
for these flowers never seemed
to bloom as beautifully as did the rose.
Perhaps he wasn't putting his whole heart into his work.
Every time he grew a new flower, the gardener would look at his first dead rose and think
that even dead, the rose was still the
most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
He decided that he could never be a gardener if this dead rose kept him from bringing his
other flowers to full bloom.
He threw the book with the rose away and didn't garden for a while.
A few years later he noticed a new bud coming up from the ground where he had planted
the first rose. The gardener wondered
to himself why there was a new rose beginning to grow there.
He hadn't planted it. It came of its own free will.
The gardener was the happiest he had been since the night the spring storm destroyed the only
thing that made him happy. He
knew things would be different this time. He knew how to care for all types of flowers.
He was a gardener, and this rose sprung from the ground without his help.
He thought that this new rose had wanted to be in his garden; it must have wanted the
gardener to care for it. This time he even named it. It was called "Rebecca".
Since Rebecca was such a young rose, the gardener new he had to invest a lot of time into
caring for it. He cared for this
budding rose so much that his dreams were filled with its beauty.
Each day he would once again spend his time talking to the
rose, watering it, nurturing it to maturity.
The gardener knew it would take time. This rose hadn't yet learned its voice, although the
gardener could hear whispers from
Rebecca. He thought it was saying, "Thank-you for caring for me.
You see, I have tried to plant my seed in other gardens, but
no one would care for me. You are beautiful, Gardener."
The gardener was filled with joy at what he thought Rebecca was whispering to him.
Even though Rebecca was still a bud, it
was even more beautiful than
the first rose he tried to grow years before.
Everyday the gardener would tell the rose how beautiful it was, but he still wanted to see what
was on the inside. He knew that
when Rebecca finally opened to him,
he would never want to care for another rose again.
One day she opened and finally spoke to him. His heart broke with the words that filled his ears.
Rebecca told him that even
though she was beginning to love him, she must go away.
She feared that the gardener would leave her like so many others had
in the past.
The gardener tried to explain to Rebecca that what she had told him could never
happen because he was beginning to care for
Rebecca so deeply that nothing would take his heart
away from the garden. He would always be there for her. He would never
let a storm kill her like the first rose.
The storm was a mistake that he would never let happen to Rebecca.
Rebecca said, "Thank you,"to the gardener. The next morning she was gone.
That was the day that the gardener let the weeds begin to grow. Not only did he let the weeds
grow in the garden, he let them
grow around his heart.
He never touched the garden again.
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