Life Ongoing

Many of you are familiar with “The Little Prince” by Antoine de Saint Exupéry.

For those of you who aren’t, according to Wikipedia, “Antoine Marie Jean-Baptiste Roger, Comte de Saint-Exupéry, (and you thought the Mexicans had the claim to long names – ha!) simply known as Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, was a French writer, poet, aristocrat, journalist and pioneering aviator. He became a laureate of several of France’s highest literary awards and also won the United States National Book Award.

The book “Le Petit Prince” ( Saint X was after all, a French writer) is ostensibly written for children.  In Amazon it lists it as age appropriate for ages 1 and up.  It is my favorite book.  I’m 81.  Why this broad range of age appropriateness? Because the lessons it gives are ages old and ageless in the spectrum of human relationships.  The focus of this article is on real love and this book addresses that so well.  To give a synopsis relevant to that part of the book,  The little prince lived on a planet in another galaxy far, far away.  He found one rose living on that planet as well.   He loved his rose and tried to protect her.  He spent time with her, finding her idiosyncrasies amusing and endearing.  She assured him she was unique in all the universe and he believed it and felt so gifted that he was her friend. The day came when he had to leave and he went to another galaxy, another planet, the planet Earth.  One day as he was walking around his new planet, he came upon a field of roses, all looking exactly like his rose and he sat down and wept.  Along came a little fox who tried to comfort him, but that was not to be.  “She LIED!” said the little prince, “She told me she was unique in all the world and here I find a whole field of roses looking exactly like her!”

The little fox let him cry for awhile and then gave him this rejoinder.  “Your rose did not lie.  She IS unique in all the universe because of the time you spent with her, because of the relationship of give and take you had with her – she indeed is unique in all the universe to you.”  She indeed was your special rose.

So often in our busy worlds we forget this lesson and fail to acknowledge and appreciate the special rose in our lives; the special someone we have chosen above all others to really get to know, to protect, to care about, to bond with, sometimes to forgive, sometimes to hope for understanding. We take the time to smile at the idiosyncrasies of this special someone, who to us IS unique in all the universe, because we know their special souls. 

If you have this special someone still in your life.  It won’t always be so.  Live, love, laugh and be happy, in the now, for that is all any of us ever have and if it is filled with your special rose, it is enough. 

Note:  I recently was in Diane Pearl’s new shop up one block from the carreterra at Sta Margarita 23, Riberas del Pilar, 45906 San Antonio Tlayacapan, Jalisco.  I found a wonderful container of Ikebana of clay which holds only one rose, beautifully.