A White Water Lily

Once, in my first life, a long time ago I was a white water lily. I lived in a beautiful lake. It was warm and very clear. People loved to come fishing, swimming, or just to have fun. Happy young mothers liked to put their babies on my large strong leaves, and splash around them.

Teenage-lovers usually hid behind my wide petals and shared their naive conversations with me. I loved to reflect the soft rays of the sun and was as happy as the people around me. I was silly and young, I did not know what life is for: I was happy just to be beautiful.

One day, all of that tranquility and peacefulness was destroyed. A powerful hurricane suddenly came out of nowhere, and ruined everything. It turned the beautiful lake into a dirty swamp and killed all the animals that lived in it. The frogs are the only creatures living in it now.

I remember I was trying to escape from the stones and sand flying right at me, but no!...

Where is the white water lily? She is probably dead along with everything in her lake. But her soul - it survived!

I remember: I woke up feeling the strong heat of the sun and the unusual humidity in the air. It seemed strange to feel the water above, instead of below. I looked around and realized that I was a white rose on the costly rose bush, at the end of a long ally.

I felt lonely at my new place and sometimes thought it would have been better if I were dead. I saw many young couples at the red rose bush at the other end of the alley. No wonder: a red rose is a rose of love. I also noticed many young people at the pink roses, which bring hope and luck.

Before their long journey, some people visited the yellow rosebush: a symbol of departure and memory. But who will come to me?! I am a white rose - a rose of sorrow.

Surprisingly, one day... An old lady... She came to Me. - Her son was killed in the war in which he had to go, and she was crying. Her sorrow was so close to me that I wept with her, even though I didn’t perfectly understand what she was saying to me. Time is the greatest doctor in the world; in a year I saw that lady at the pink rose-bush. She found hope, some strength to go on.

And then that girl, I remember... She was tearing up a letter from her fiancée who wrote that he didn’t love her any more, and that he had found somebody new. She threw her engagement ring at me and ran away. In a few months I saw this girl with a handsome young man at a red rosebush; she had found her true love.

Seeing her smiling at that boy made me happy, and suddenly I finally understood my real purpose in this life. I am a rose of transition -- I help people, creatures just like me, someone who lost something, or did not find one’s way in life.

Now I enjoy my new life, and feel very helpful. I also hope that someday, in my next life I will become a bird -- a bluebird of happiness, I’ll fly home to my lake that is warm and crystal clear again, as it used to be before.

1993-1995