The Rose Bushes

The Rose Bushes

There are these two rose bushes in my backyard, and they were stripped of all leaves and flowers since autumn last year.

Every time that a single leaf would come through, it would get instantly eaten by the possums who lived over the back fence.

The possums had taken a liking to the rose bushes in particular, leaving all the other plants untouched, apparently not taking any heed of the plentiful thorns along the roses stalks.

It was so bad that it looks like the roses were just stalks with thorns. I thought them dead for a long time - how can a plant survive with no leaves?

I had thought that it would be a shame, but the best thing to do would be probably rip these roses out and plant something else that might have better luck. It was sad to look at the bare and thorny branches with no leaves. Neither did any new stalks seem to grow.

Then, in the beginning of spring, out of nowhere, the leaves grew again. However, this time something was different. The leaves grew in such number and all across the bushes. The possums still ate one or two, but there were so many leaves that it seemed the possums could no longer ravage them. Now there have been even a few roses bloom.

What I took from this is that just like the rose bushes, we can flourish again if we can survive the hard times. In fact, survival may be its the best thing we can do to ensure our long term flourishing - so hang in there.

The rose bushes in bloom!