The little prince had left his planet and had finally landed on earth. There he found a huge rose garden in a desert. Now, he had left a beautiful rose(the only rose) on his planet. He had formed a wonderful love relationship with this rose who had told him that she was unique. Here, on earth, he found a huge garden of roses.

Dejected he wandered on until he heard cries from a small fox saying "Tame me." The little prince asked "What is it to tame?" The fox replies, "It is to establish ties. ..to me, you are nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys and I have no need of you. ....But if you tame me , than we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world."

"I am beginning to understand, " said the little prince. "there is a flower.."
The fox continues to plead with the little prince and says
"One only understands the things that one tames...if you want a friend tame me..." Finally the little prince agrees. The fox then details a procedure in which he will come everyday to the spot in the woods and the fox comes also. There they would view each other from a distance of safety for several days. Over time they would draw closer and closer until they had built a bond of trust. Then they would have tamed one another.

This is, of course, what we do with our friends and our spouses. Regrettably, we quite often forget the rest of the story.

The little prince and the fox proceed to follow the taming process and at the end of it the fox is overjoyed. When the time of departure of the little prince arrives, the fox says "I shall cry." The little prince laments that the taming has done the fox no good. But the fox responds, "It has done me good." And then he refers to the color of the wheat fields (which are the color of the little prince's hair) that will always remind him of the little prince and the joy he has brought him.

He suggest that he go and look at the rose garden again and see if any of them are like HIS rose.The little prince does so, agrees that the roses are nothing like his rose and then returns to say goodbye to the fox.

It was then that the fox told him his secret: "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye." "It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important." "You become responsible , forever, for what you have tamed. You are responsible for your rose..."

It takes time to build trust and time to get to know another person. Over time, we become fond of one another. We grow affectionate one toward another. We begin to depend on that person and they us. This is a bond that is precious and fragile. And we are now responsible for the other person because we have encouraged them to depend on our being there for them.

This is the basis of all my significant relationships. We must build trust, accept and live up to that trust, and accept responsibility for our part of the relationship
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