Blind Rose

I sat on a park bench one day. It was a bad day. I was upset and angry and miserable. One of those moods that's just lousy, but for no apparent reason at all. And in my grumpiness, a young boy came up beside me. He held a rose in his hand. "Look what I've got" he said. I certainly wasn't in the mood for this. I didn't want to play this childish game of making a big thing out of nothing. I looked down at the rose. It was dry and withered. "Lovely," I said. "I got it for you," the lad replied. "Really?" I played along, "how sweet of you." He raised the rose up to his nose and sniffed at the wilted, discoloured petals. "It smells lovely. Here, you have it." He lifted the rose up in the air, as though... and then I realised, the boy was blind. I took the rose from his hand, and smiled. Then realising he could not see my thankful gesture, I said aloud, "Thankyou very much." The boy grinned, and trotted off. I gazed at the rose, and then I smelled it. It really did smell sweet. This young blind boy had shown me that there is more to a rose than the way it looks. It was clear to me that the bitterness I held inside I had held because the people in my life did not look as a rose should. I realised now that they smelled sweet none the less.

And so I looked across the park, and I watched as the boy picked another rose. He took it over to an old man, whose life he was about to change also.