I came to him with my disappointments.
They were all packed in a sack, slung across my back. Some were fresh and sharp, like broken glass. Others were old and dull, but heavy—like stones soaked in grief.
“I have carried these a long way,” I said.
He looked at me with compassion. “And what do you want from me?”
“Hope,” I said.
He nodded slowly, then led me to the garden. It was winter. Nothing bloomed, trees bare, earth frozen.
“Here,” he said, handing me a cracked pot. “Plant something.”
“But it’s not the season,” I said. “Nothing will grow.”
He smiled. “Plant something.”
So I took a handful of the ash-colored soil and put it in the pot. I placed in it a seed he gave me—though it looked more like a pebble. I watered it with a few of my tears.
“Now wait,” he said.
“For how long?”
“As long as it takes.”
I waited, days, weeks. The pot sat on my windowsill, unchanged. I told myself it was foolish to believe. I began to resent the seed, then the pot, then him as well.
At last I returned to him. “It’s still empty,” I said. “Nothing is happening.”
He looked at the pot, then at me. “So it is,” he said. “But tell me—how many times did you check it?”
“Every day.”
“And what did you feel when you looked?”
I paused. “Disappointment. Frustration. But… also a little curiosity. A little wondering. A little… hope.”
He nodded. “Then it is already growing.”
“But nothing has sprouted!”
“Not in the pot,” he said. “In you.”
