The Roses
We live at the Dead End of a tree lined street. Very Wisteria Lane. Our house is a beautiful old huge colonial. White columns…balcony off the bedroom…and held together by duct tape and Elmers glue!
But, we live next to Elizabeth Park. If you don’t know the park, its the oldest rose garden in the US…at least I think that’s the claim. Anyways…Its the most special place in the whole world to me. Truly..the whole world. And I’ve climbed the great pyramids in Egypt, walked on top of Masada in Israel, floated through the Panama Canal, Dog Sledded on the top of an Iceberg in Alaska…and been privy to places that few people ever get to see.
But the most important, beautiful and spiritual place in the whole world to me…is in my own backyard. Literally! How cool is that!
It’s where I went to make out when I was a teenager. Where I’ve taken many family photos, picnicked, watched concerts, got engaged, got married, buried my grandmother’s, grandfather’s and father’s ashes.
I walked there this morning…and realized that there are certain things that always appear in your life…it just depends on when you choose to recognize the importance it plays.
For example…when I was young I always used to doodle. Some girls doodled unicorns, some rainbows…I always doodled a rose. It was always a single stem, closed bud rose. I got pretty good at it. If you look at my old Watkinson artwork..I think it was all roses.
Then in my yearbook…everyone does a quote. And even though my quote was such a cliche…It was one that I always loved…even to this day I think about it all the time. It’s the last part of the song ‘The Rose’ by Bette Midler.
For those of you who don’t know or don’t remember…here it is:
“The Rose”
Some say love, it is a river
That drowns the tender reed.
Some say love, it is a razor
That leaves your soul to bleed.
Some say love, it is a hunger,
An endless aching need.
I say love, it is a flower,
And you its only seed.
It’s the heart afraid of breaking
That never learns to dance.
It’s the dream afraid of waking
That never takes the chance.
It’s the one who won’t be taken,
Who cannot seem to give,
And the soul afraid of dyin’
That never learns to live.
When the night has been too lonely
And the road has been too long,
And you think that love is only
For the lucky and the strong,
Just remember in the winter
Far beneath the bitter snows
Lies the seed that with the sun’s love
In the spring becomes the rose.
When Greg knocked on my door in October of 2006, it was the one thing he bared…a single white rose.
And when we got married…it was the one thing I gave back to him…but it was a paper artwork rose that my step-daughter had created for the wedding.
But, what’s kind of ironic is that I hate the smell of Rose perfume…It reminds me of old ladies!
Anyways, the rose bed that has my family’s ashes in it is a late blooming bed. So the roses are still on it and in full bloom. The roses are a pale peach, large blooms and lightly perfumed. I have probably over 100 pictures of me and my family next to the bed. Its where Greg proposed…in front of my Dad.
When I bent down to smell one of the flowers…it still had one drop of dew on the petals. As I smelled it, the rose brushed against my cheek and the drop of dew wiped off and onto my cheek.
Good morning Daddy.
Love,
Tra