At one time the plants existed peacefully in the Garden of Eden, but when Adam and Eve were cast out, there was chaos in the world.

Oaks and pines shoved each other’s trunks to get a better position of the sun’s rays and caused battle scars called “knots.” Those can still be seen today. Roses formed thorns to rip the leaves of other flowers and prevent others from taking their portion of the sun. Bark was just another name for armor while branches and thorns pierced like spears and arrows.

Seedlings never had a chance to get a taste for light. Casualties mounted from the greed and finally many flowers retreated to the meadows and to the fields. Trees and shrubs of the forest rejoiced in their victory but quickly turned on each other—the war far from over.

Refugee flowers could not rest long as dandelions soon dominated the fields.

When the moon appeared, all plants curled and clung their branches and leaves together so as to have enough energy to battle and fight once more when the sun rose.

One gray flower grew weary of this forever battle. She never bloomed for she never reached the light. The slightest nudge from a stem plunged her face first into the ground.

While in this position, she contemplated the possibility of becoming some kind of underground plant such as the potato or the carrot. Then she would not have to fight above ground. She slowly lifted her face and swung her bud downward into the dirt to dig a home underneath, but the presence of clay made one of her petals fall from the force. She was about to try a second time until she remembered that even underground plants need the sun.

She glanced at the red rose with thorns that seized petals of other flowers and wore them as medals of war. No one could conquer the rose.

The gray flower looked at the ground. Sharp-edged rocks surrounded her and a pine tree nearby was bleeding with sap from the last encounter with an oak tree. She stretched with one of her leaves and took some of the sap and rubbed it up and down her stem. Then she picked up some of the sharp-edged rocks and glued them to her. The first rock she placed on herself tore through her stem. She closed her eyes at the pain. She put on another rock and another rock and another rock. She glanced at the rose with tears in her eyes and finally pulled the rocks out. She was not meant to have thorns.

While healing from the cuts in her stems, she looked at the hardy dandelion. He could grow anywhere and everywhere and could squeeze through clay and stone alike. The dandelion even looked like the sun.

The gray flower lifted pebbles to strengthen her leaves and stem until finally she could advance to stones. She spied a stone as big as her head and wrapped her leaves around it. She could feel part of it lift from the ground and then she heard a terrifying rip. It was her stem. It had bent in half. Now the gray flower was forced to face the ground. Her spirit was gone and she knew she was doomed to extinction.

She curled closer to the ground and dreamed before she would die. She felt warmth on her cheeks and could feel her tightly closed bud open. Her petals were no longer gray but shone silver underneath the . . . she opened her eyes and saw not the glorious sun above but the majestic moon. She turned and saw the other flowers, shrubs, and trees sleeping. She alone rejoiced and bloomed during this peaceful night.

Few know of the beautiful silver Moonflower, but those who stroll along a path under a full moon shall never forget her.

Cliff was a participant in the senior adult day program that I manage in Shelton, WA, a small rural town whose economy is based on forestry and fisheries. Cliff had lived in Shelton his whole life. He’d operated a garbage service there. His grown kids worked in construction and shellfish canning. He was a little crusty around the edges, but we loved him. Sometime in mid-life he’d had a stroke that seriously disabled him. His wife had cared for him for many years and after she passed away his daughter cared for him. Somewhere along the way he’d started attending an adult day program that is designed for seniors with conditions that keep them from being independent.

Cliff’s whole left side no longer worked and he was stuck in a wheelchair. His mind was still sharp as a tack, though, except when medications or fatigue got to him. He always liked a joke or a story or a comment that was a little risque. (Maybe he liked them a lot risquÈ, but we never went there.) And he wondered about this work that I did, often asking why I was working here if I had a college degree and all that experience.

A couple of years before, I’d left my best-paying high-powered job. I’d left it to return to my parents’ home so that I could spend time with my Dad who was on that never-ending downward spiral caused by Alzheimer’s disease. Mom wasn’t sure I should come because it was so stressful to take care of Dad. And I agreed, it was stressful, but a different kind of stress than I had experienced managing a training program for a big company. Eventually Dad needed to be moved into a care facility and Mom passed away and I ended up working for Senior Services. That’s how I arrived in the presence of Cliff. Cliff who wondered what I was doing helping “old half-baked” people (his words) eat their meals, read the newspaper, go to the bathroom, tell a few stories, and crack a few jokes. Good question.

But it was easy. It was easy because I was one person connecting with one other person who needed me. And this happened with other seniors in the program,too. They needed me so that they could go on with their lives with dignity. They needed me to celebrate their rich and varied experiences in the past and to affirm their lives in the present. Sometimes they just needed me to help them do simple daily things.

Like the day lunchtime arrived and Cliff was hungry. The hot lunch from the Senior Center smelled good. But for some reason that day, Cliff kept sliding down in his chair and leaning to the left. My assistant and I repositioned him in his wheelchair, propped up his left side with pillows, did all we could to keep him upright, but he just kept sliding and leaning and couldn’t eat his lunch. So I asked if he wanted me to hold him upright and he said, “Yes, please.”

I stood there, propping Cliff up so that he could eat his lunch, wondering to myself, “What am I doing here?” And I knew. It was easy. It was easy to help this man who had lived so long and done so much and today just wanted to eat some lunch. He needed me and I could help him. It didn’t matter who I was, what my resume said, where I’d come from, how much education I had, or how much money I made. It didn’t matter if I’d reached my potential, if I was self-actualized, if I’d reached the pinnacle of success. It didn’t matter that this job is not valued by society. It did matter to the families who sent their loved ones to a safe and positive place so that they could have a break. But most of all it mattered to Cliff. He wanted to eat lunch.

Now, Cliff is gone from this earth, but I still remember him. I remember him as the person who helped me discover how easy it was to let go of all the reaching and striving that had driven me for so long, and just stand still serving another human being.

Copyright (c) 2006 Randi Moe