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@ ODILI ONUOHA
2025-06-13 13:04:54In a quiet coastal town where summer lingered like a forgotten song, lived an old gardener named Ali. His home sat at the edge of the cliffs, where ocean wind tossed sea spray into the air and the sun kissed everything golden. Ali’s garden was a legend of tulips that sang with color, vines that danced in the breeze, and trees that whispered stories to anyone who would listen.
But Ali had grown frail. His hands, once strong, now trembled. His memory sometimes slipped like sand through a sieve. Yet every day, he tended the plants. Not because he needed them but because they still needed him.
One autumn, a young boy named Ben moved into the neighboring house. Ben had not spoken a word since losing his mother the year before. He would sit for hours at the fence, watching Ali work.
Ali never asked him to speak. Instead, he gave Ben a sunflower seed.
“Plant it,” he said. “And believe in the bloom.”
Ben did.
The next day, Ali gave him a cracked watering can. The next, a rusty trowel. Day by day, silence became action. The boy mimicked Ali’s movements. Dug soil. Watered. Waited.
Then winter came fast. A cruel one.
One morning, Ali was gone.
The town whispered, “The gardener has passed.” Snow dusted the garden. The plants withered. Ben stood before the tiny sunflower shoot and wept silently.
But spring arrived timid and uncertain.
And from the earth, a single sunflower broke through.
Ben spoke his first words in months to the flower.
“You’re not alone.”
And in a voice that cracked but carried, he added, “Neither am I.”
Moral: Even after loss, life finds a way. Sometimes, a single leaf can carry the weight of hope for someone else.