A heavy-hearted flower on a hill gazes up towards the evening sky
wondering about her worth.
She looks down the valley to the other flowers.
To her, they are beautiful.
To her, they are better.
Full, round, colorful petals: pale pink, deep red, virgin white, sunny yellow.
Her ash gray petals are nothing to theirs.

What an ugly flower she must be, alone on the top of the hill.
“What is wrong with me?” she asks, tears welling up in her eyes.
“Why didn’t God make me like them?
I am far from lovely, sweet, and pretty.
And my petals, darker than a stormy sky,
Are appreciated by no one”.
She is nothing.

She rises, stretching her stem to the sky,
And climbs to the tallest tip of the hill,
The most dangerous spot in the entire valley.
But she doesn’t care. She just wants everything to stop.
Very soon the harsh windy gusts of the approaching storm
Will rip through the exposed flower.
Her hated petals will be teared off.
The rest of her,
Blown into the nearby sea.
The crestfallen and now terrified flower
Can hear the howling winds in the distance,
But she doesn’t back down.
She stands, anticipating her demise, contemplating her past,
A past filled with pain.
Insecurity.
Warm tears run down her face, and she sighs.

The speedy winds are almost at the hill.
She looks up to the sky one last time.
Then she hears, “Little flower, STOP! Get off the hill!”
It’s the voice of a gentle summer’s breeze in the nearby apple tree.
“Don’t do this! Get down!”
The voice was yet a whisper, but it affected her with greater intensity than a scream could. At the last second, taking the breeze’s words to heart, she ducked.
And the gusts tore through the air above, not her petals.
Not her.

“What am I doing?” questioned the shaken flower.
She crossed the sands of the beach to the right of the hill,
And made her way to the ocean.
She climbed atop a rock at the shore and stared at her dismal reflection
in the rolling, gentle waves.
She glared at the petals she so hated.
Sadness swept through her as she considered them, and their atrocious coloring.
But the gentle summer breeze blew overhead and whispered,
“Look at those petals. So beautiful… so rare.
No one else has colors like yours”.
As she finished speaking, the sun appeared through the heavy clouds,
Shining a dazzling light on the little flower’s soft petals.
The amber light made the gray look like a translucent, pale blue.
“You are unique, special, and you’d be surprised by how much the other flowers hate their own petals. They are not better than you” ,the breeze continued,
Dancing up in the palm trees.
The little flower looked at her reflection once more,
Watching the warm sunlight play up the gentle curves and folds
Of her mysteriously blue petals.
A feeble smile.
A deep breath.
Hope filled her soul.

From then on, the little flower stood tall on her hill. She grew, and eventually her gray Petals became a deep indigo, warmed by the sun and her change of heart