That Wild Strawberry Bush

It was a bleak backyard of rather a depleted house in an old neighborhood,nothing very bright or radiant around it but there it stood on a stone paved floor with its tiny scarlet fruit, the wild strawberry bush. The small plant somehow managed to get through a crevice on the floor. That little bush of tiny, wild strawberries was the only thing vivid and resplendent in the middle of that ugly backyard of the house in Manchester, where I was staying with some relatives on my trip to England.

With nothing to second it like a beautiful garden or lush green lawn, the tiny bush stood there with a grey Second World War shelter at one end and clothing lines with clothes hanging when it didn’t rain and an out of order cooking range discarded by the lady within.

Nobody seem to notice it but it caught my eyes as one day I stood
there to relieve myself of a mounting depression about an uncertain future and many other reasons. The weather was dark and heavy and with the dull scene in front of me it added to my gloom. I took a sigh and decide to take a walk. It was then it caught my eye and suddenly there was a smile on my face. To me it simply seemed like a poem of Wordsworth springing out of the earth in reality it looked beautiful but most importantly it generated hope.

It made me forget my tensions and I felt as if the entire beauty of this lush green country was distilled in this tiny view, it gave me the satisfaction of a full scenic view. I sat near it watching it intently and taking all the strength and hope it gave me. I plucked a little strawberry and tasted it had a bitter, sharp taste but that was not the reason it held my interest.

It will soon die at the winter’s approach if lucky but sooner it will be trampled by the unruly boy of the house who jumped and thumped everywhere. Nonetheless it was there just then with little red fruit and glossy green leaves looking more from the Lilliputian world of Gulliver’s.

God communicates to us in strange ways and I felt Him showing through that pretty spectacle why I, a human, in much better circumstances can’t survive the trials of my life and so I went inside after gazing a long time at it sated and with a new hope rekindled within.

That tiny plant with it ephemeral existence stabilized my mood and calmed my sense a thing at that particular time the whole beauty of the Highland could not have done and I came back to Pakistan more confident and contented and it was much easier to take decisions after that.
I realized that day,that to learn a great lesson one doesn’t need a miracle or an Armageddon but a very minor thing or event can change your whole perspective.