When my children ask what I want for my birthday, I always tell them to make me something, write me something, or just give me hugs and kisses. This year my youngest painted these beautiful flowers and my oldest wrote a story about my recent coursework to earn my certification as a Parent Coach from the Jai Institute of Parenting and my hopes for this work for families everywhere. I asked if I could share them with you and they gave their consent.

Enjoy.

The Seeds of Hope

Once upon a time, the world was filled with darkness. Because the darkness was all they knew, people would spread the darkness’s ideas to their children. Their children would hear this darkness from their parents, and spread it to their children, and the cycle continued in this way for years and years.

One woman, looking out her window, saw all the darkness in the world, and felt overwhelmed. How could she send her children into the world without the world spreading the darkness to them? She did her best to spread a message of love and hope to her children, but she knew that they would eventually leave her protection, and then they would succumb to the darkness. 

She told her children that she was going to leave them for a couple months, and that their dad would watch them in the evenings when he came home from work. The woman searched the world at the biggest libraries, the tallest towers, and the most serene beaches, but wherever she went, there was darkness, and she found no way to combat it. She was filled with a sense of despair as she made the long journey home.

As she made her way off her boat, a cloaked stranger tapped her on the shoulder. “Go to the Jai. You shall find the answers you seek there.” The woman turned, saying “The Jai? Where’s that?” but the stranger was gone. She asked everyone she saw at the dock, but nobody knew where (or what) The Jai was, and nobody saw any cloaked stranger. Out of options, she headed home.

When she got home, she popped open her computer, looking up The Jai. Only one result looked promising. She clicked it, hoping it would hold the location of The Jai. “The Jai tree only flowers once every six months. Only those who are pure of heart can pick the fruit, which normally is just out of reach to others. There is only one known Jai tree and it is in…” 

“I’m headed to The Garden of the Hesperides in Greece. I love you. And remember, always be good to each other and others.” The woman said, kissing her children on the foreheads. After a long boat trip, she made it to the island of Greece. She saw the cloaked stranger again at the dock. The stranger pointed in the direction of a mountain that dominated the skyline. The woman nodded and began the journey up the mountain. After a day of walking, she made it to the peak and made camp. In the morning, she saw a singular white flower. As she waited, before her eyes, the flower bloomed into a shining fruit.

The woman took a bite, and it tasted like the opposite of darkness. It tasted like a summer evening spent with family and friends. It tasted like the first lick of an ice cream on a hot day. It tasted like hope. The woman wanted to share the fruit with the world, but knew that one fruit was not enough to share with eight billion people. So she ate the rest of it, until she got to the seed inside. Ready to head home, she broke camp and descended the mountain.

When she got home, the seed was pulsating with many colors. There was purple, red, blue, yellow, orange, and green. It was as if the seed was excited to be shared with the world. The woman put the seed in a pot and watered it carefully for many months. She nourished it, until it grew a tree of its own. Because the woman took such good care of it, many flowers bloomed from her tree. She lovingly picked each fruit, and started small by going around her neighborhood, trying to hand them out.

At first, people didn’t want to eat the Rainbow Fruit, as the woman had taken to calling it, because they were accustomed to the darkness and were afraid of change. But one day, a little girl took the fruit, handing it to her mom. “Eat it Mommy!” She exclaimed. The mom reluctantly took a small bite, then swallowed. The woman held her breath. Would she like it? Then the mom’s face lit up. She ate the whole fruit, and promised to plant the seed later. The next day, another person ate the fruit, then another, and another. The woman started having people help her deliver the fruits, because there were so many people eager for a taste of hope. 

The woman noticed something. Each time someone took and shared the Rainbow Fruit, the cloud of darkness around their house lifted. Little by little, her whole neighborhood was free of the darkness, and the woman was proud of the sanctuary she had created, but felt she could do more. She knew some people who might be able to help her get the fruits to other parts of the world. She contacted them, and they were willing to help her spread hope and love. Her own children and husband also helped her spread the fruits to nearby places.

Little by little, the fruits took root, clearing out more and more of the Darkness. The woman felt proud of her work, and felt, for the first time, good about her children’s future when she was gone and they were out in the world by themselves. She had created a change in the world, and proven that the Darkness wasn’t indestructible or all-consuming.

Epilogue- 30 years later:

The woman was very old, but the effects of her fruits still existed. People were still caring for their Jai trees and spreading the message of the Rainbow Fruit. Nobody outside of the woman’s close friends and family knew who had spread the fruit to begin with, but that was ok. She wasn’t doing it for fame or money. She wanted to make the world a better place for future generations, and she had accomplished that goal.

Her children were all grown up. The eldest drew artwork for the trading card game she had played as a child, and the younger one worked in cyber security, stopping hackers. Not once did she worry about the darkness returning or her children falling prey to it. When her children came home for holidays or just to visit, she would always remind them to spread hope and love, even when others were spreading darkness, which was a message they carried for the rest of their lives.

The End

Happy birthday Mama! I love you! Thank you for being the light in the darkness.