I have a garden I always tend to. I admire how the plants flourish, how they bear the fruits of your loving, careful labor. It's right in front of your eyes. Seed by seed, root by root, stem by stem, leaf by leaf, and bud by bud, every detail matters. Missing one might endanger the rest of it. You'd have to keep a very close eye on them to be able to tell what to do with what you're seeing. It's things like this that teach you to look after things with caring efforts, with all your heart put into maintaining them. They teach you how to appreciate the littlest buds, and how to be patient for the toughest seeds to grow. You see every bit of work you put into it come to life over time, and i makes itself bare to you. It gives you the honor of knowing that they flourished because of your care. That all the work you put into it is worth the beauty you see. They may only last a short while, but learning to appreciate things more is what's best about it, and you can always plant another.
People, however, are a very different story. You can care for them and give them all the joyous love, water them gently as you did with your plants, but there is never a guarantee that they will turn out the way your care intends them to. With people, you will never be the only gardener. Everyone else who's with them partakes. There are people that cut the wrong stems and leaves by accident, some on purpose. Some seem to put all your efforts to shame. The love and care they get from you can easily be washed away by the poison they're given by the people that tell them they give better. They try to pull your precious one from their roots, and there's no making sure how strong those roots will be. It's true that you get to see them grow, but you will never truly know which path they'll take. All you can do is to do your best for them, and be prepared for however they may choose to be.
With people, the trials and errors cannot be taken lightly; the errors alone can turn them into what you will soon see them be, whether you dread it or not. You can't have the same person twice after one has gone away, there's only one life, there's only one chance.