Once upon a time, a sleepy little shrub lived a contented but impoverished life in a quiet shady corner of a garden. Although the little shrub did not complain, it was much smaller than most of its other friends, and its branches were thin and twig-like. While the little shrub had a few leaves, they were all a mottled yellow green, not a healthy pure green. Worst of all, it had never flowered or even produced a flower bud. But, in its own way, it was comfortable living its own little life; it received just enough sunshine each morning to get by and, when it rained, its thin roots were well watered.  

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One day towards the end of autumn, the wise old gardener, who loved all his shrubs, needed to make room for larger and more beautiful plants. He arranged for the little shrub to be moved from its comfy, secluded position to a more isolated part of the garden. However, the move tore many of the little shrub’s fine roots and damaged it badly.

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The forlorn and frightened little shrub found itself in a place where the soil barely covered its spidery roots. The little shrub felt unwanted and sad. In addition, the little shrub discovered that it had been planted in soil just above a thin slab of impenetrable concrete. That part of the garden had been used for many years as a dumping ground for all kinds of rubbish.

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What was the little shrub to do? If I do nothing, the little shrub thought, I will surely die. My roots can never grow through that concrete. More frightened than it had ever been, the little shrub wondered how it would ever get food and be able to survive with all these problems. The little shrub was lonely, as many of its friends would no longer come to visit—the earthworms, the little beetles, the brightly coloured butterflies. They all had better and more important things to do, and more beautiful plants to visit.

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But the little shrub decided to count its blessings: it’d been replanted where the sun shone upon it most of the day, and where the gentle breeze cooled the surface of its hot leaves in the late summer afternoon. The soil, although very sparse, was rich enough to keep it fed. Best of all, the wise old gardener still cared about the little shrub, as he did about the whole garden.

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So, making the best of what was available to it, the little shrub, full of purpose and hope, was determined to survive. Day after day, and week after week, the little shrub managed to get by. The going was tough; it was not easy to grow in its new position in the garden. Some days it was so cloudy that there was no sunshine, but the little shrub knew that the sun would shine again and that the deep-blue sky would return. Some days no cooling breeze came, and its leaves would get scorched and burnt. On other days the wind blew bitterly cold; it howled and ripped its little leaves from its branches. On still other days an army of ants or a battalion of beetles ate the little bits of food which the little shrub needed to stay strong. Many times, the little shrub felt cold and hungry and wanted to give up completely. The little shrub would often ask itself what the point was in continuing. Where was all this determination to survive going to lead?

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Despite the many doubts and all the obstacles in its path, the little shrub was determined to keep living. Months turned into a year, and it grew stronger, ever so slowly. When the sun shone and the breeze blew gently, and when it had enough to eat, the little shrub became more hopeful, more courageous, more persistent. It became grateful for all it’d been given to help it survive.

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Its little roots gradually grew, and they became longer, thicker and stronger. But life for the little shrub was still a struggle.

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More months passed. Then one morning in early spring, in the still–crisp morning air, the old gardener saw that his little shrub was different. The little shrub did not seem ‘little’ any more. Something about it had changed. New, unfurled, green stems had appeared on a number of branches, and several of the stick–like branches had become thicker and more robust. The little shrub had become taller, as if it were reaching into the deep blue sky. It was also thicker and wider. Lush, bright-green leaves gleamed in the sunlight, and many new, pink shoots had appeared, as if overnight. And then the gardener saw something that he’d never seen before on one of the little shrub’s slender branches: a flower bud.

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In the weeks that followed, the little shrub’s appearance continued to change a great deal. The little shrub now stood tall, noble, filled with life, and sprouting new branches, new leaves and new buds. Finally, about a month later, it flowered, and it soon became engulfed in pure-white flowers, each stained with small blood–red flecks. The flowers had a delicate, sweet perfume. No other shrub in the garden had flowers, nor a fragrance, that could compare. It made the gardener smile. He looked at the shrub, and he saw that it was good, very good. The little shrub had never felt so awake and alive!

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As the weeks passed, the shrub became the gardener’s showpiece, more beautiful than any other shrub in his entire garden. Butterflies and buzzing bees, attracted by its sweet fragrance, returned and visited every day to admire the shrub, and to show their other insect friends. Neighbours came to collect small cuttings for their own gardens, and to give away the cuttings as presents to their friends. They praised the wise old gardener as no one had ever seen a more beautiful and elegant shrub. What had once been a forlorn, scrawny, little shrub had now become all that the old gardener had originally intended it to be.

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Over several years and seasons of flowering and bringing delight to those who saw it, the shrub began to feel tired, very tired. It was running out of energy. It was the shrub’s turn to die. Gradually, its leaves became fewer in number, and they changed from bright green to mottled yellow. It flowered less often and the sparse flowers that remained shriveled too soon.

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Yet the shrub was full of deep joy. It could now look back and be thankful for all that had happened to it during its life. It remembered the warmth of the sun, the gentle, late-afternoon breeze in summer, the richness of the soil, and the many insect friends it had met. The shrub also remembered the bad times, only to realise that without those bad times, it would never have grown to become so beautiful. It even felt grateful that the old gardener had allowed it to be uprooted and replanted, as painful as it had been. The gardener had meant no harm, only good. The bad times didn’t seem so ‘bad’ any more. For whatever had happened to the little shrub, the wise old gardener had always been there behind the scenes, in control. Even when the nights were very dark, they were never completely black; there had always been at least one far-away, twinkling star to give the little shrub hope.

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It made the shrub think. So many beautiful things had happened since those times when things were not going well and everything had seemed so bleak. Not only had it become the centrepiece of the garden, but the gardener had been very proud of the shrub. He had given it a little bit more water and food whenever extra care was needed. And from now on, the little shrub would flower in thousands of gardens every year. Little shrubs would grow tall and bloom again every spring in the gardens of everyone who had come to take a small cutting.

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And what a wise old gardener! The shrub never found out why the gardener had allowed it to be uprooted, nor whether the gardener ever knew that the little shrub had been replanted above a slab of concrete. But it didn’t matter – the shrub could see no loss, only gain. The concrete slab had not been a barrier at all, even though it appeared to signal the end of life. No, it wasn’t like that at all, for although the little shrub’s roots could never penetrate the unyielding concrete, the roots had grown, and grown, and grown until they had grown right around the concrete slab into richer, deeper soil. The shrub’s roots had grown around the concrete slab so thickly that the shrub appeared to hold the piece of concrete in its embrace. The ferocious winds still came from the south and uprooted other shrubs, even the taller, more beautiful ones. The rainstorms still came and threatened to drown the other shrubs in the garden. But the shrub would only smile at the ferocious winds and the driving rains – it was no longer scared of what they could do to it.

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In its final weeks, the shrub remained at peace; as it looked back, it saw that there had been a plan and a purpose to its little life which now made sense. And, in the end, this was really all that mattered: to learn that every experience in life gives us the chance to become who we were always meant to be. We can all reach into the deep blue sky. And, for that, we must be grateful.

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The little shrub had learnt that every experience – especially the ‘bad’ things that happen to us – are gifts that can be turned into sweet-smelling flowers that bring joy to others.