Once upon a time there was a young man who lived alone in a cabin in the woods. He never went into town, if he needed something he would simply forage it from the land. Because he was so good to the land and cared for it so, the land loved him as well. The area around his house was always lush with plants and all things he tried to grow there flourished. The reason he kept himself secluded from society is because he knew the essence of humans was evil and dark. He kept himself away not to protect himself, but to protect everyone else from him. His heart was so kind and tender that he could not bear the thought of hurting someone else. So he shut himself away, cut off from society. Yet it was inevitable that he'd run into someone...
One day the man was about to head outside to collect his food for the day but what he saw stopped him in his tracks. He saw a woman slowly walking through his garden, not picking anything, just slowly walking. He pauses, then walks over to her and holds out a hand. "Miss?" She stops smelling a particular flower and stands straight up very quickly, looking startled. He withdraws his hand immediately and takes a step back. "I'm very sorry Miss. I didn't mean to startle you." He looks at the ground while he talks and now keeps his hands clasped tightly behind his back. The woman laughs lightly and walks up to the man. "No, it's my fault. I apologize. I was only admiring your wonderful garden." The man looks up and meets the woman's eyes with a small smile. "I'm glad you like it. But you should go home. It's late." Her smile doesn't falter. "Of course." She walks into the woods as the man watches wistfully after her. The woman visits the man day after day for a long time. He comes to enjoy her company and eventually falls in love with her. They get married and are very happy. Yet one day, inevitably, he hurts her. He let his anger fester for days and then it spilled out harshly and roughly. When the words had fallen out of his mouth he stood there stunned. While he stood there his heart slowly broke. He left his new wife sitting there at the kitchen table and runs out to the garden and sits under a willow tree. The sad looking tree echoed the sadness of his heart. A while later his wife comes and finds him. She puts a hand on his shoulder and leans down but he jerks away, afraid of hurting her further. She pulls away but sits beside him. He begins to cry. "I'm so sorry." He says in between sobs. Soon the sadness is too much for him to bear and so he looks to his wife for comfort. They embrace and sob anew, but together this time. After the crying has stopped, the man is tempted to slink off in shame. But before he can the woman grabs his chin and forces the man to look in her eyes and she says, "My darling. I am surprised that after all this time tending to the plants and earth you have not learned this simple lesson." She looks at him with eyes full of love and kindness. "Do you not, when flowers die, pluck off the dead heads so that another flower can grow in it's place? Or do you not, when a branch no longer produces fruit, cut it off so that a new branch may take it's place? The entire plant or tree is not dead! The same in life. Inflicting pain is inevitable. But when it happens that does not mean that the relationship is dead! You must simply find the cause of the pain, pluck it off and then move on. When things are broken they grow back more beautifully and more completely than they were before. The important thing is that since we handled this together, we will now grow together." The woman smiles and holds her husbands face tenderly in her hands. "Yes, you may have to work on a particular problem multiple times, some weeds don't disappear as easily as others. But I'll be here with you every step of the way." The man wipes tears away from his eyes and kisses his wife gently. "And I choose to love you and to stay here loving you, no matter what happens or what it takes. I'm here." They stay huddled under the willow tree for a while watching the sunset before they head back home, hand in hand.
The End.