Life’s Precious Lessons

I was elated to see flower buds coming up on the Lilly plant that was growing in our garden. I and my friends had spotted this plant on one of our walks and brought home. It had beautiful white flowers with candy pink stripes and were a visual treat ! A google search showed that these flowers/ plants were called actinium Lilly. All of us were waiting for the flowers to bloom for close to an year now and finally the time has arrived!

Every morning I would rush to the plant hoping to see the flowers to open up and bloom. At last the day came when the buds grew very large and seemed ready to open up. It was a very cloudy day and I thought sunlight was needed for the flowers to bloom. Whole day I would go to the plant once in a while ,with expectation and had to return with disappointment. Finally, towards late evening the flowers opened up and how beautiful they were! I realised then that they were evening bloomers! I capture them in photographs.

The next morning, I saw they had withered within a couple of hours after sunrise. Such a short life and that too in the darkness of night. I had waited with lot of anticipation and did feel sad and disappointed. I posted the pictures in the Facebook with a caption “ we toil whole year to see the flowers and they live only for a day???….not fair” . All my friends appreciated the beautiful flowers; how could they not? But one comment made me sit up and think. It said ,” May be the flower wanted it’s life that way? Beautiful and short”. So true! May be it was the flower’s wish or the Creator’s will. My love for the beautiful flower was genuine yet it has been so overwhelming that I was unable to see beyond. It happens very often. We are so much engrossed and possessed by ourselves and sometimes by selfishness that we are blind to others’ point of view and wish , hurting their feeling and also with dire consequences. Life is a fantastic teacher and it is never late to learn. This is indeed a lesson well learned and always to be remembered.