Author: Syed Suhail Ahmad
July 2, 2025
0
3 views
The sea was calm that morning, its surface kissed by light. Emil stood barefoot at the shoreline, holding a paper boat he had folded with care.
Behind him, Grandfather watched silently.
“I won the school prize,” Emil said, not turning around. “First place. Everyone clapped.”
Grandfather smiled. “And yet you stand here as if you lost something.”
Emil let the boat touch the water, where it bobbed uncertainly. “I thought I’d feel more… proud. But I just feel scared. What if I lose next time? What if I can’t do it again?”
Grandfather stepped beside him, hands folded behind his back. “Then you have learned the first lesson of winning: humility.”
They walked together along the wet sand. The waves whispered beneath their feet.
“Let me tell you something,” Grandfather said. “Success is not your reward, and failure is not your punishment. Both are gifts—wrapped differently.”
Emil looked up. “Gifts?”
“Yes,” Grandfather said. “Given by the One who made the tides. Success is given to teach you gratitude. Failure is given to teach you courage. Both are meant to shape your heart, not your pride.”
They stopped at a cluster of driftwood shaped like a bench, where they sat.
“Do you remember last winter?” Grandfather asked. “When our crops failed?”
Emil nodded. “We lost almost everything.”
“But that’s when you learned how to build the greenhouse with me,” Grandfather said. “And this spring, the first green leaf came from that work—not from ease, but from endurance.”
He placed his hand gently on Emil’s shoulder.
“Don’t measure life by the trophies it gives. Measure it by the gardener you become. Do you grow bitter in drought, or do you keep planting seeds?”
The sun began to rise higher, painting the ocean in gold.
Emil nodded slowly. “So winning isn’t the end?”
“No, child,” Grandfather said. “It’s only the weather. And the weather always changes. But the soul—you—must learn to walk in sun and storm alike.”
A wind picked up. Emil turned back toward the waves, his paper boat now far out at sea.
“Even the boat knows,” Grandfather said. “It must float not only when the tide is high, but also when it drops.”
And together, they stood again—not in the glow of victory, nor the shadow of defeat, but in the sacred stillness between them.