The Little Flower Who Lived

 Once upon a time there was a little flower who wanted very much to do big things. Each morning it woke to the same sky, the same air, the same morning dew, and felt that it was incomplete. 

    You see, what the flower wanted exactly was to be picked and cut and then travel all over the wide world in order to see everything. It wanted to reign supreme over all the other flowers, touting its knowledge and lording its beauty for all to see. It wanted to be placed in the button hole of the strongest leader in the world. It wanted to move from place to place, tipped over handshakes with all the queens and kings there ever were. It wanted to see all the greatest dances and hear all the most illustrious music, smell all the finest food, and then grow old and weary in only a heartbeat of a moment before it died.

    The flower did not do all those things. But it did something very grand, all the same.

    The grand thing happened in a moment, in an instant, in a heartbeat.

    It happened at the moment of clear sky, at the taste of the morning dew drops, for the flower found itself stunned by the sudden rising of the morning sun. In an instant, it forgot all about every other kind of grandeur.

    The flower was so amazed, that the next moment was all for gratitude.

    And the next? That was when all the other grand wishes grew old and weary and died in a heartbeat of a moment.

    Thus, the little flower began to live.

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