The Rose

the rose

What is it about a rose that makes it so beautiful to so many?  It has been written about, sung about, there are a plethora of poems about it.  Valentine’s Day is all about the rose and receiving one makes our hearts beat faster and make us feel special.

The rose comes in many different colors, and as many scents and shapes as there are colors.  The beauty and scent can be intoxicating yet so ironic as its thorns will prick and harm ones fingers if not careful, but isn’t every beautiful “thing” ironic in its own way?

I too hold a special place for the rose.  Not just any rose, but a rose received on one particular day every year, my birthday.

My Grandfather began my amour with the rose.  He had a beautiful Lincoln rose bush in our front yard garden.  It was red, lush and tea scented.  It produced perfect specimens time and time again.  But what was so special about this bush was that it would birth two perfect red roses, the first of each season, which would bloom exactly right at my birthday the first week of June.

You may be thinking big deal, so nearly ever rose bush begins blooming the first week of June.  I know, but when you are 5 you see it as magical and that the rose bush performed this miracle just for my birthday.  I still feel this way nearly 45 years later even though I know that most rose bushes begin blooming at this time of year, I still feel as though they are blooming for me.

Is it coincidence that this rose bush would produce two perfect blooms just in time for my Grandfather to give me and my sister each one beautiful and special present just for us?  My sister and I happen to share a birthday ten years separated, she the elder.

Of course I never thought of what would happen when the day would come that my Grandfather would no longer be able to give us our special gift, but that day did come.  The rose bush also was not looking so good either.  It was as if the rose bush started to die too.

I never realized that my Mother was aware of the special gift that we received each year, but she did.  She knew and I think now looking back that she loved that part of her Father just as much as I did.  Her love prompted her to plant a new rose bush near the Lincoln.  This was a Tropicana.  Coral in color, yet just as sweet tea scented and the year that the Lincoln stopped giving the annual gift, the Tropicana took over.

My Mother surprised both of us on our birthday that year by showing up with two perfect specimens, carefully wrapped the way she would wrap them for travel.  I used the poke fun at her quirky little presentation, but I was so young and in my 20’s thinking I knew everything and actually knew nothing.  The rose was presented in a tin foil bulb if you will and once unwrapped the bottom of the stem was wrapped in Saran and under the Saran a wet paper towel bulb to keep the stem moist so that it would hold until it was placed into a bud vase.

It brings tears of joy as I write this looking at my birthday rose this year.  Its color is fading and it is getting ready to drop its petals, yet looking so majestic still in the bud vase.  I almost do not want to throw it away when the time comes.  My niece wanted to make sure that I got my rose as my Mother is no longer here to give it to me.  I figured the tradition was over and that it would only be 50 years of memories that I could smile back on.  What gets me so choked up the most is that my rose was wrapped exactly the way my Mother would wrap it, in its little tin foil bulb, with Saran and wet paper towel.

Another miracle occurring right now is that the Lincoln looks like it may be coming back to life as it is showing one small and tiny little sprouting stalk and my niece is trying to bring it back to life.

This to me is the beauty of a rose.  It is more than just a beautiful flower, it is a present, a tradition all made from love.

As I prepare to publish this article that I wrote nearly a year ago, I regret to say that all good things do, the rose bushes saw their last season.  It is bittersweet that I read this article now, but I will always have these lingering memories of what the Rose really means to me.  And as I write this I have to laugh that last week I had to awe inspiring opportunity to hear and see Bette Midler live sing The Rose…..that was how I received my rose this birthday.  I final memorial if you will, never to be forgotten.