The last goodbye.

This is just a story that I want to dedicate to someone before we both walk our separate ways and ending everything once and for all. I know this is for the better for the both of us, as we have had enough of all this push and pull through the three years after our breakup. We've loved each other really deeply, enjoyed each other's presence and cherished every single moment so much that the more we stay together, the more hurt we'll become. 

To be honest, it's not that I've have forgotten or you'd call, stop caring about this someone, it's just that I believe we need a breather / some time away from each other, at least for awhile. &I strongly believe he thinks the same too :') 

Anyhow, this teary-eyed story will give this dedicated someone the answers he has always asked me and really wanted since 9th August 2008 which was when we first got together. He knows this very well, I've never told anyone such things, but I'll make him the exception to know my truest heartfelt answer.

Sunflower by "Jill the Potato Chip" 

I'm a sunflower. I take long to wilt, even without roots, and always looks like sunshine under the light blue sky and fluffy floating clouds. I can rely on my owners to maintain the soil, watering me every day and the brightest sunlight to support my bright yellow petals, stringy brown roots and green sturdy stem through my lifetime. I was once in this great nursery where I grew along with many other pretty sunflowers, where I can have the greatest environment of my growth of the yellowiest petals and planted under the most fertilised soil, along with the most refreshing water until we had to spilt ways for the nursery had to close down. Before we know it, there came the first owner who picked me up along the way just before its closure.

This first owner of mine was a great one who gave tender loving care; putting me into a pot to let me to grow well under the good conditions he had given me. However, one day, due to the lack of commitment on maintaining me; he brought me to an unfamiliar nursery, left me alone and never came back.

The unfamiliar place was a tranquil and unhappy one which had overcrowding flowering plantations all over the place. Although some were nearby, but I never felt like I'm on the same patch as them at all as they were almost of the same type of flower and here I was being so different from them. It was equivalent to being an outcast among the many flowers of the same type that were grown on the same patch as where I was.

On one particular day, he returned to the nursery to visit me to see the progress of my growth without his presence. He had brought his new significant other along with him and admittedly, my yellowness had reduced a little bit for giving in to the substandard location that I was planted in which lacked almost everything for good conditions for my optimal growth. That had indicated I was gone from his life forever.  

Soon after that day, a new owner came to the nursery. He picked me up, shifted from my lousy location, to one of a better place, and accepted me as his. I was more than happy enough that I finally had such an owner who was ever willing to maintain me at my best. He planted me with the most fertilised soil, bathed me with the most refreshing water, and put me under the brightest sunlight. Though I was still in that tranquil and unhappy place, nonetheless, I was still more than happy to find such a great person who maintained me effortlessly. I have never felt so loved more than ever before. Shortly after some time had passed, the part of me who had once given in to the unhappiness of being alone was forgotten. He had coloured my life and made me grow brighter and even helped to cut a big hole through the sheltered tent that I was located at to grow under the greatest conditions.

Through the time I had him as my owner; I knew I'll always be in his mind, regardless of wherever he went. Sometimes, he even puts me into the loveliest pot that he kept in his place and brought me home to show me to his family and friends of my yellowiest petals. At other times, he will bring me back to the nursery I was once in. Upon realisation that the other flowers had shifted to a new location of a better environment, we hit for the place to see the many other of the same type of flowers besides the “me” that he had held tenderly with his big and warm hands. I knew he was definitely captivated by that panoramic view of “my friends” back then.

However, to my surprise, there was a particular day that he started to close up the hole he had cut for me and wondered his reason for doing so. Just when I started to ponder, he looked at me intensely and expressed the apologetic look on his face. I could tell he was going to a place out of the country and would be unable to take care of me for a period of time. While he was away, I waited patiently, but he never came.

Slightly over a month later, he returned to the nursery. He wasn't only unhappy to see me; he brought a well-maintained dark pink rose with pretty bloomed petals along. In my opinion, he must have liked it very much during the trip for it was so well maintained. I was really envious of its radiant pink coloured petals, which had definitely outshone my slightly reduced yellow petals.

Soon after, he had observed intensely between the two flowers, which are I and the dark pink rose. By then, the rose’s petals were already reducing its colour drastically even with everyday watering and bright sunlight. From then, he had made the decision that the rose didn't hold as much of a candle to me. He was fully aware that I had been the bright yellow flower that impersonated the sunshine to make him smile, and the one that had shone through his monotonous personal life. He knew I was his everything. Hence, he left the dark pink rose to wilt and soon enough, it did.

Eventually, he removed the stitches of the hole that he had once sewn, but hadn't yet realised that some of my petals had already fallen onto the soil and started to wilt due to the lack of sunlight and water that I lost while he was away. Adding on, he was also not at all aware that in spite of everything that he did to maintain me exactly the same way he did before he left, I wouldn't be as perfect as I once was anymore.

Anyway, he maintained me well again. But strangely enough, this time, I felt that it was especially different from that effortless way he did when he first picked me. Somehow, I had felt the maintenance was no longer effortless, but more of a burden on his shoulders. That made me feel queasy on my core, but I took it in anyway.  Some time passed. Eventually, he had observed that my petals were not as bright as before and felt dejected upon learning that realisation. He had then regretted not taking of me as effortlessly alike to the time before he left me ever since he had returned from his trip. But I knew it was all too late. I will never grow back to be as perfect as before. Following that, he somehow fell into a deep depression for “God-knows-the-reason-why” and before I knew it, he decided to cut off my roots, and had left me with just my stem as support and water as my soil.

I had felt the excruciating pain of emptiness when I first started living without my roots. The feeling is as if a limb had to be amputated from the human body. However, despite this occurrence, he continued to maintain me for a long period of time while I lived. I had no idea why he did that. He had not only brought me home to maintain me, he even went to the extent of trying to put me back into the most fertilised soil for my growth. I had then guessed that he didn't want to lose me and felt guilty for what he did, and decided to extend my survival through the time while myself being rootless.

I had lived longer than expected. In fact, it was until one day, and unsurprisingly enough, I was left alone without him maintaining me as much. My bright yellow petals had decolourised to become a yellowish-brown and started to incline downwards even more.

Despite the discolouration and the signs of my soon-enough death, I tried my best to maintain my will to live for his sake. I had thought he will give the same, if not almost equivalent, tender loving care that he had once given me, like the last time when my roots were once cut. But I was wrong. He not only did not do so, he left me alone without maintenance. In fact, he had begun to sew back the hole that he once cut to cover up the sunlight. That’s when I fell to my most devastated point and inclined downwards even more. From then on, I'd given in to the lack of good conditions and lost my will to live and wilted with immense torment. Eventually, you had to discard me for my life had come to an end and were already attracting flies to buzz around the area where I was planted and grown at.  

But deep inside my core, I know I will never forget the second owner's tender loving care and effortless maintenance, especially the time he had coloured my life to become a brighter sunflower while being in the tranquil and unhappy nursery that I was left alone at and eventually bringing me to his lovely home before my life came to an end.

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The short story entitled “Sunflower” is copyrighted only to the author. Readers can read freely but this should not re-blogged, redistributed or reposted.
©2012 Gillian Gan Li Zhen. All rights reserved. 

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This is dedicated to you, Mr N. Many thanks for colouring my life through my almost-horrible polytechnic days, for brightening me up and never failing to make me laugh and smile in my every day while schooling, and most importantly, being the lion-hearted man I’d once loved. I have believed you to be a very wonderful person, and still do. Through these italic texts and the post I’ve just typed, you would have found out the reasons why I've loved you so deeply.

To be honest, I still don’t know how I’ve stood in your heart from then until today as you've never dedicated anything much to me ever since the breakup.

I have always wanted to catch a real glimpse of you and physically feel your presence, but these have all been avoided from both parties so much that we don’t have such opportunities or what you call, chances, anymore