The Healing

The ice plant has always been proud of its resilient existence. Its strength has been its almost indestructible nature which makes it grow in an inhospitable eco system, clinging to a boulder or rock surface. Planted with some care in a terraced rock garden, it did not know how it got uprooted by a careless stroke of the gardener. It was as if fate had destined it to die while it was still in its full bloom of purple-pink flowers growing amidst the glistening green leaves.

As it lay on a rock, still unable to assimilate the shock of approaching death of its indestructible self, it noticed the delicate, cloud-like snow-in-summer growing on the steps nearby. As the ice plant started to wither, simultaneously the snow-in-summer covered the entire patch of rock in its wispy white glory.  The snow-in-summer knew it will only last few months of the summer, and wanted to experience its bloom in freedom and joy, spreading in gay abandon on the rocky steps and the wall.

The ice plant almost died in an embrace of the snow-in-summer, but before it breathed its last, its soul was healed, for it had not only witnessed the abundance of life in its full glory, but had also learned from the little white flowers, how to live in the beauty of each moment. It had understood that life is only in the present – the past is a memory, and the future yet unborn.