Red Rose, Red Rose

This year I have red roses! I planted a climbing rose bush about 5 years ago. Every year there was a problem – too young – bugs got to the buds – animals destroyed it – always something til this year. The bush is covered with buds and blooming red roses. This gives me so much delight and satisfaction – I wonder why.
I remember that Mama always had red roses. She cut them for arrangements for the house. She made arrangements for just about every room in the house. It was one of her weekly jobs. We wore roses on Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. The custom was to wear a red rose to church if your mother was alive – father was alive. You wore a white rose if your parent had died. My sister, brother and I wore red roses. Mama and Daddy wore white roses.
I think having red roses makes me feel like a proper woman. I didn’t know that I was missing red roses that much. I can only speculate now that I have red roses and I feel so smug. I feel like dancing around shouting – I have red roses – I have red roses – I have red roses!!
Of course everybody that comes to see me has to see my magnificent rose bush and then come inside and see the arrangement in a white milkglass bud vase. That certainly dates me. In the fifty’s white milkglass was quite the thing. Then it fell out of favor. I love the milkglass budvase with a red rose in it!! Exquisite!!
Other flowers remind me of special times, special events, special places, and special people. For whatever reason that special time was when I first really knew the flower. I may have seen it before but for whatever reason it had not registered. Now at this certain time and place I really see the flower. So the flower and that time are forever intertwined.
I see a patchwork quilt with a special flower in each square. There in the top corner is…………………….
Iris – Denton, Texas – garage apartment – I was pregnant with my first child – irises lined the sidewalk to the steps to our apartment.
Sweet Peas – grew on the garden fence between Aunt Keiffer and Cousin Mildred’s – grew in that red SC dirt and climbed the fence – such a sweet smell, that is what stayed with me all these years.
Weeping Willows – I planted them in a swampy backyard of the first house I ever owned. Now I ride down the street and see them towering over the house and point them out to my passenger and say “see my weeping willows”. I love that early spring chartreuse.
Violets – A purple carpet between our house and Laura Francis’ house. Mama anxiously awaited their blooms every spring.
Camellias – Jean always had them at her home on State Park Road. She would bring them in and float them in water in a bowl on the dining room table. Oh how she loves flowers. I think it runs in the family – Mama’s gift to us all.

Sometimes I am a weed -
I feel like a weed - I look like a weed - I am a weed
Sometimes I am a wildflower -
I feel free and easy - I think I look like I belong to nature - I am a wildflower
Sometimes I am a cultivated, civilized good looking flower like a rose
I feel successful, controlled, prepared - I think I look beautiful (like I should) -
I am a rose!!
Sometimes the way I look and feel pleases you and sometimes not!
Sometimes the way I look and feel pleases me and sometimes not!

Oh, I can't wait to tell my 89 year old Mama that I have red roses in my yard!!

Oh, the pleasures and memories that roese bring!!