The pink hibiscus on the table

My wife and I were at a weekend couples retreat last year when the pink hibiscus on the table caught my eyes. One of the hotel staff had severed this little branch from its main frame, placed it in a lovely vase and rested it on our table to enhance the décor of the room.

We were in our second year of marriage and decided to spend an entire weekend with other young and seasoned couples. The whole weekend was filled with fun, frolic, love and a school of lessons.

This was a few months before I had taken up gardening as a hobby. My mind flashed back to a few weeks earlier when we had transplanted some of the flowers. As a result of the time lapse, one of the plants went into a state of shock.
This lasted for days and it seemed as though the plant would never recover.
I was disheartened and bewildered.

As I looked at the pink hibiscus on the table, I sensed that it too will go through a state of shock and this will last for as long as it takes to develop new roots.
This little pink hibiscus was struggling to survive and needed some urgent help. I also contemplated how much this must have been a lovely branch while it was still joined to its ‘family’. It now had to take on life on its own.

If you have been following my path in this blog so far, then you know exactly where I am going next.
Our marriage was much like the hibiscus on the table and the flower we had transplanted a few weeks earlier.

We both were doing well with our original attachments and in the gardens in which we were born; the place where we were originally planted for so many years. We had been severed from our families and joined as one. We were also now in our state of shock.
We were going to continue our state of shock for as long as it took us to grow new roots.

Now, we were in a garden of our own and needed to re-root. We would continue to live in a state of shock for the rest of our days, wither slowly and die or find our roots and started to flourish again. These were our options.

There are many families who are like this ‘pink hibiscus on the table’.
We struggle to stay alive and we struggle to keep going. But be encouraged when I tell you I am not sure what became of that hibiscus on the table at the resort we stayed for the weekend. But the flower we transplanted a year ago has become a star in our eyes. You just can’t help but notice how beautiful and complete it looks even before you enter the garden.