A WEED IS BUT AN UNLOVED FLOWER











“You can cut all the flowers;
but, you cannot stop Spring from coming.”
-      Pablo Neruda

Is it important for every parent to place an unshakable belief in their children? And, is it important for a teacher to do the same?

I have been both, a parent and a teacher, for many, many years. And, from the other side, I have been a child and a student for a period even longer than that…

Thus, it gives me a fair sense of authority to answer the question: “Yes, it is!”

But, then, there seems to be a fairly-wide gap between what we all think about this issue, and what we all practice…

My parents and teachers had difficulty ‘fully’ believing in me… So, regularly, they voiced their concern by shouting and screaming, but, with the hope that it would set me right, bring out my best. Yes, at hindsight, it doesn’t look like a good way of parenting or teaching, leave alone, an ‘ideal’ one…

And, today, when I have switched my roles?

Displaying our ‘total’ belief in our children and students remains an all-time, beautiful ideal… Yes, be it so. Without this ideal, we all will go about playing our roles – of being parents and teachers – with a heart of stone and a dead conscience…

So, this ideal is our conscience-keeper… May it keep shining like our Pole star.

Meanwhile, in my class, today, I was losing my patience with young Yash… Poor fellow! I hope, he still loves me and respects me, despite my constant blowing hot and blowing cold… I love him, I believe in him… I know, that he is like a May Flower, which waits till May to bloom… I know, that, when it does, it stands out beautifully… Leaves the finest fragrance!

But, then, that impatience of mine to see this flower bloom in March!

When I realized what I was doing, this morning, I told Yash and others in the class this:

“Yash beta, I feel bad when I shout at you sometimes. But, I want to tell you, that it’s because I am anxious to see you bloom now in March, alongside other flowers… When my impatience ends, I realize, that you will bloom only in May… I need to wait… I need to trust… I need to believe in you!”

Did it make our garden look grander this morning? 

I believe it did… The Pole star in me doesn’t let me down!

And, yes, as Ella Wheeler Wilcox said, “A weed is but an unloved flower”, you see!


GERALD D’CUNHA
Pic.:www.northpole.com
Video: Andre Rieu/Sergei Egorov

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