Valuable Lesson
...ers, but it couldn’t be called a garden. Inside, the house smelled of burnt wood. The kitchen had dark and somewhat rusty looking parquet flooring. The rest of the house excluding the bathrooms had mushroom colored carpeting throughout. For some reason, this was not how I pictured home. A few months later, I had made a strong companionship with a girl that I had met through my parents’ friends. I was fortunate for this because I had difficulty making friends at school. Sarina and I were both completely different people, having completely different lifestyles. Still, we were inseparable. Perhaps you could say I was jealous of her. She lived in a house at least five times the size of mine. I observed her well, and I thought she had everything. But I remember being at her house once, talking to her grandmother. She was sweet. She told me that Sarina and her younger brother did not have parents. They had died after being in a car crash. Sarina had never told me about this. And though I had always noticed her somewhat timid personality, I had never thought twice about it. It was her silence and my unawareness that had taught me so much. Sarina had everything to hold but nothing to cherish. And all the while I had been in a rat race against myself, longing for simulated warmth. I went home that day quite touched by my friend’s high spirit. As I walked up my front patio, I noticed how stunning the small, white, pearl-shaped flowers were where the grass had been cleared. I kneeled and withdrew two. My mother had opened the door just...