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The father was preparing to mow
the always manicured lawn
when his three-year-old son
came running across the grass.
Abruptly the boy stopped
and knelt close to the ground.
The father walked over to see
what had caught his son’s eye.
A weed! A weed had sprung up
among the orderly blades of grass.
The man reached down to extract
it so he could throw it in the trash.
Seeing this, the child shouted,
“No! It’s pretty.”
The father now saw petite, sky-blue
flowers bedecking the weed’s stems.
“Please don’t kill the pretty flowers,”
the son pleaded with voice and eyes.
“It’s just a weed, son. I don’t want
weeds growing in my lawn.”
“But I like the pretty flowers, Dad.”
Later, when his wife brought the man
a glass of water to quench his thirst,
she saw a perfect, evenly mown lawn –
except for a small square left untouched.
“What’s this all about?” she asked.
“That, my dear, is our son’s garden
of pretty flowers. He sees only the blue
flowers and not the sprawling weed.”
She answered with a knowing smile,
“So did we all once, when we were
still young and innocent. We saw
the good and simple beauty in life
that adults have long learned to ignore.
It’s a shame that grown-ups fail to see
the beauty of life that surrounds them.”
The man replied, “It’s still a weed!”
“All too soon our son also will see
only the weed and no longer will see
its pretty flowers. We can’t prevent it
from happening,” the mother whispered
as tears meandered down her cheeks.
“Good! Then I can have a perfect lawn.”
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