HOW MAMA LOVED ROSES

How Mama loved roses.  Ever since I was a little girl I have loved roses. It began as soon as I could walk in our yard.  Mama always had roses in her yard and they were beautiful.  She had every color you could imagine, in every shade possible,  but her favorite was of course the red ones.  She had one she called a "VELVET CUP ".  I don't know if that was it's given name or if Mama had named it that,  all I know is that it was the most beautiful rose I have ever seen,  even to this day.  It's petals were a perfect layered circle.  It had the sweetest smell of any flower I had ever smelled,  and it felt just like the velvet dresses my Mama made for me at Christmas.  It was a deep red with not one blemish.  Mama would often cut ( NEVER PICK )  them for our table.  The entire house would smell like roses.  My Mama would always place the FIRST one on the plant on our table after she pulled off the outside one to place in my bible.  Mama  said  it was so I could carry her love with me to church.  Everytime a new rose would bloom I would find it in my bible.  What I would give now to have just one of those blooms left,  now that Mama is gone.  But as children we tend to loose things and not think about them much.  Now that I am older I find myself often thinking about things I have lost (since I've moved a million times ) or things that I have thrown away ( Although my little girl will be the first to tell you I don't throw out NOTHING),  I do.

I went back to the old homeplace a few years back and my heart was saddened.  Little remained as it was when I lived at home.  The yard was different.   No one kept it  up anymore.  I'm glad my Mama wasn't with me...because she would have had a heartattack to know that there was a car engine on her front lawn.  As I looked around the place seemed so cold,  not like the warm loving place that I use to come home to everyday.  There were no flowers around the front of the house,  no impatients lining the entire sidewalk around our house, and NO ROSES.  I think that is what bothered me the most. 

  I thought about the old homeplace and I could almost feel the sadness that the yard must have felt ( If like Mama said,  the yard liked to be pretty).  I couldn't help but wonder if our yard missed Mama. When Mama was home she made sure the grass was always cut,  ( I hated mowing,  because sometimes she wanted it done twice a week )But today I could hear that old lawn telling me "PLEASE come and cut me...I'm much too tall.  Then I saw all the weeds growing up alongside the house and sidewalk,  and thought how sad...Mama worked so hard to keep the cinderblocks in a fresh coat of paint.  Then I saw the weeds chocking the life out of what was left of the few flowers still growing up our driveway.  I can remember when Mama would say " Gotta get the weeds out of my flowers today before they kill my "babies'. I don't know how they made it this long...maybe they did it for my Mama as  proof that she had lived there,  and had nurtured them for so long.

How Mama loved roses.  But she would have shed tears today to see that the ones she had cared for, and talked to, and given so much of her time to were gone.  I could see the round  rotten roots that was evidence that at one time beautiful rose bushes grew here.

Mama passed away,  and I could not get home to place roses on her grave as I would like to have done. But I know that she is in God's Garden  tending to roses that are more beautiful than any kind we have in this world.

I hope that my little girl will one day want to take care of the roses I have growing in my yard.  Each one is special,  and tells a story about my life.  I hope one day someone will hear her talk about her Mama,  and that she will have good memories to share of us together,  and I hope she'll  be proud to tell others

How Mama Loved Roses.