The Seed

The Seed

When I was young, I once planted an apple seed in a flowerpot.

After finishing an apple, I saved a seed and carefully wrapped it with tissue. Learned from my mother planting flower seeds, I knew that the seed would sprout and grow in soil. My juvenile mind also told me, that the deeper the seed was buried, the more nutrition it was going to absorb. With my tender fingertips, I moved apart the topsoil, excavated a hole, and embedded the seed deep in the pot. I kept the pot on the balcony, where it is closest to the sun but farthest from thunders and storms. I held some water from the tap with my palms, and poured it into the pot everyday. When the water immediately permeated into the soil, I smiled expectantly. I hoped the seed would grow into trees and bear apples soon with my irrigation and great care.

I waited. However, not knowing when I stopped watering the soil, the seed was left in the forgotten corner of the balcony. Not until three years ago did I remembered and noticed that flowerpot which carried my young little hope. It was still there, unmoved.

I had been depressed for a long time; my future had become an unsolvable mystery because I didn’t do well in my graduation test. Even after I accepted my father’s offering to go to US, I still had an ambivalent feeling. For me, studying abroad was certainly a new hope of my future. Nevertheless, was it coward to escape the reality? What shall I do to preserve the hope? There would be too many uncertainties. On the morning before I flew abroad, I lingered around my house, touching everything with my fingertips. Everything felt familiar but strange. I strolled to the balcony, stretched in the sunshine with open arms. When I was twisting my head, a little green color was reflected into my eyes. I traced that light to a flowerpot and suddenly recognized it, though it was covered with dirt and dust. Holding the flowerpot with both hands, I observed the appearance of that seedling. No matter how hard I tried to convince myself: “its shape looks like the apple tree leaves; it smells like an apple, ” it was just a weed. That apple seed, together with my hope, had been rotten and integrated into the soil for a long time. “But how can a seed of weed sprout and grow in this isolated situation with hardly no water,” I wondered in my mind. “Probably it was because of its hope to grow and its tenacious vitality!” Suddenly, the haze in Shanghai seemed to be dispersed. I smiled confidently, as a new seed had been planted into my heart. I hoped this seed would sprout fast.

Last year there were more storms than it used to be. When I was at home, looking at that seedling of weed became my daily routine. Instead of placing it on the balcony or watering it every day, I placed it in the garden. I  knew it can grow faster out there because it can absorb more water and nutrition from the storm. At the time before I come back to school again, a small red flower had bloomed on the top of that weed. Looking at that flower, I smiled sturdily.

I have become a seed. I hope to grow up as a weed, as it has tenacious vitality. I hope to live in the storms because I can absorb more and become stronger. As a seed of hope, I hope I can develop my roots first, grow up fast, and bear fruits for the world at the end.