However, when he finished his painting, he was not completely satisfied with it. When the teacher say the boy's look of dismay, she promptly walked over to him, leaned down, and asked him what was causing him to make such a face.
"It's my painting, it's..not good enough," replied the boy.
"What do you mean? This is fantastic!" exclaimed the teacher in a low whisper; she didn't want to make the other children feel inadequate.
"No it's not good enough for my grandma. I want to give her something more special. She needs?Real flowers! Yes, teacher, how do I get real flowers?" asked the young boy.
The teacher explained to the young boy that flowers come from seeds that are put into the ground and require water and sunlight. When she was done explaining, the young boy's face lit up, and the teacher smiled, her concern feeling eased at the young boy's change of state. The young boy handed her the painting and told her to put it away for him, but instructed that she not give it to the grandmother. The teacher complied, and put the painting on the wall in the classroom.
That night, the young boy asked his grandmother if he could receive his allowance early, on account of his good behavior so far in the week. Though it was only Wednesday, the grandmother granted her grandson's wish and drove him to the store. Once inside, the young boy hurried off in the opposite direction of the toys. The grandmother called out to him that he was going the wrong way, but the young boy merely yelled back to his grandmother,"No I'm not! You'll see You'll see!"
About 10 minutes later, the young boy rushed back to the grandmother as she sat on a bench at the end of the aisle the boy had traveled down. He stopped running, slowly paced up to her with his hands behind his back, and then asked the grandmother to close her eyes. The grandmother placed her hands over her eyes, and when instructed so by her grandson, uncovered her eyes to reveal something she felt was rather peculiar.
"Those are?.that's a small bag of flower seeds, young boy," spoke the grandmother.
"Yes grandma they are! I want to plant them, in our front yard, right outside your window! Please please please please plea-"
"Oh alright alright enough, yes of course. Of course you can, my?odd little grand boy. Let's hurry home now, it's getting late."
The grandmother and the boy left the store and since they got home before the sun went down, the boy was allowed to plant his seeds upon arrival. He dug with a tiny metal shovel a tiny shallow hole, opened the bag of seeds carefully, then turned them 180 degrees and watched the seeds fall to the ground like sand in a hourglass. Once the seeds settled, the young boy placed the removed dirt over the seeds with his bare hands and poured in some water he had taken from inside his home via an old empty milk carton. Finally, the boy sat with his legs crossed and rested his chin on his knuckles, anxiously awaiting for the purple flowers to appear. He waited.
And waited.
And waited.
No purple flowers appeared before the young boy.
The young boy walked back inside, dejected, and slumped his body onto a chair in the kitchen. The grandmother turned to her grandson and asked him how the planting went.
"Bad. It didn't work. The seeds are broken. They didn't turn into flowers?" mumbled the boy.
"Oh, silly boy! Flowers take time. It's been only 30 minutes since we got home and you put those seeds into the ground. They need more time." The boy looked towards the grandmother. She had never lied or been wrong before, so he was inclined to believe what she had said about the flowers. He gave her the benefit of his doubt and decided to give the flowers more time. The next day, after the sun came out, he ran out to check on the seeds.
Still no flowers. The next day, he did the same.
Still no flowers. The next day, he tried again.
No flowers.
The young boy did this for a week, and then rethought his previous decision on his grandmother's words.
"I give up grandma! These seeds ARE broken! You were wrong, they aren't growing!" shouted the boy at his grandmother. The grandmother was caught off guard by her grandson's tone of voice; until then, she had been ignorant to his ability to have that much anger towards her. When he finished his tantrum, the grandmother sternly looked at the boy, walked over to him, and placed her hand upon his shoulder. The young boy looked up at her with a blank stare, as if her touch had broken him of a trance.
"Young boy, flowers take time," she said calmly. The boy reached over and gave her a quick hug before retiring to the living room.
That night, after the young boy had gone to bed, the grandmother stared out her bedroom window towards the place in the yard the young boy had planted the seeds. She thought of how pained the young boy looked earlier that day, and felt that her grandson deserved to see his flowers come to life, though the reason he so desperately wanted these flowers to grow was beyond her. The grandmother went outside, watered the lawn, and waited.
She waited. And she waited.
She did this for almost three weeks.
One Saturday morning, the grandmother noticed that all the watering had caused the lawn to grow rather large and in need of some maintenance, so she took her coffee mug and went outside. After an hour of being out there, the grandson woke up and saw his grandmother outside. He wanted to go out with her, but he needed nourishment first, so he slurped up the bowl of cereal the grandmother had left for him and then headed out the door.
"Grandma! I wanna help,please let me help!" the boy asked desperately; he still felt bad about the way he had yelled at his grandmother a few weeks back.
"Sure, why of course young boy, you can help me by pulling weeds. Here, take these gloves, put them on, and just pull all those long nasty ones with the little tiny black dots on them." The young boy gestured affirmatively and began pulling weeds all over the lawn.
Soon, he got to the area where he had once planted the seeds. He saw only green patches and none of the purple flowers he had planted. He didn't get it: "how could GRASS and WEEDS grow there, but NOT his FLOWERS?" he thought to himself. The thought made him angry, and in a fit of rage he began pulling everything from the spot until there was nothing left but a tiny, shallow dirt hole. The grandmother heard the ruckus and the boy's elevated rate of breathing and rushed over to him. When she got to her grandson, she saw what he had done, closed her eyes and lowered her head to her shoulders as it shook from left to right.
"Young?grandson?." She trailed off, taking a moment to wipe a tear from her eye.
"Young boy, in your anger, you destroyed the very thing you had so desperately wanted to bring to life."
The young boy looked down at his hands, full of clumps of dirt and the roots of the flowers; the very flowers that grew from the very same seeds he had planted. He let the dirt fall to the ground and fell to his knees. The young boy started to cry and reached to give the grandmother a hug; he understood now that the grandmother was right. The grandmother embraced him and after a few sniffled the boy spoke.
"F-Flowers?do take time."
"Yes grandson, and good things come to those who wait until the time is right."
The weekend finished up without a mention of the flowers or the incident at the lawn. The grandmother and the grandson had such a great weekend the young boy had forgotten all about the flowers. They had gone to the park, watched a movie, and then saw fireworks from their backyard as the grandmother placed some hotdogs on their tiny, green grill. The young boy was so satisfied by the weekend, that even the lack of an art time on Monday didn't bother him. Nothing bothered him?That is, until the teacher walked up to him and asked him about the flowers.
"Um?.they?.I?.my grandma?." The boy was at a loss for words thanks to his embarrassment, but the teacher assumed he simply had no clue what she was talking about.
"You remember, right? The painting of the flowers? Do you want it? We're learning something new in painting class tomorrow, we don't need to have this one at school anymore," she said before the young boy could gather a thought, but her words gave the boy an idea. He took the painting and asked if he could spend a few moments with paints. The teacher granted his wish, and the boy began to paint.
That night, the boy asked the grandmother to sit on her living room couch so he could show her something. With his hands behind his back, the young boy began his presentation.
"At school today, I wanted to paint you something special, to show you that I love you, so I decided to paint you a picture that had things you loved and things I loved."
The boy showed the grandmother the picture, and the grandmother could hardly hold her composure.
"I decided to paint a picture with pretty purple flowers, and a picture with you and me together. Because while you love the color purple and flowers and me, I love you, and together we love being together forever. I can't grow flowers, but I can still paint flowers, for you."
The End.
rating: 2
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