A Mother’s Loss and a Rose

Roses have  been apart of most of my life (all 68 years of it).

The first time I really became aware of a rose was after the death of my
16 year old. He was a budding photographer and on his camera we found
a snapshot of a rose off the bush in our yard.

This rose was perfect, with 3 buds shooting up beside it. It was the one
thing that helped me through that terrible time, and I knew a single
rose means “I love you”. I am looking at that rose now,
blown up and hanging on my wall.

Then my eldest son met a sweet gal in the Philippines on the internet.
He introduced her to me and we bonded on the net while waiting
for her to be able to come over. When she finally got here, she
presented me with a beautiful red rose done in the tiniest cross stitch,
and I knew it came from her heart (he married her and she is now the
Mother of my beautiful 7 year old granddaughter!)It is
also hanging on my wall.

Then, the unspeakable happened. Four years ago, my son died of a
heart attack, leaving his new wife and 3 year old daughter. At the
memorial service, I saw this beautiful bouquet of roses, and asked if
I could have some of them. I took 8 of them, and gave my daughter
4 of the 8. We both went to our separate homes and put the roses in
water.

The next morning when I woke up, 3 of my roses were all droopy,
and one rose was standing tall. I quickly called my daughter to
tell her what happened. Lo and behold, 3 of her roses were droopy,
and one was standing tall.

When something like this happens so suddenly, you grasp any straw
you can, but we both felt there was a reason why this happened.
Whether that’s the case or not, we knew he loved us and both felt
it was too much of a coincidence to be ignored.

I have a picture of the roses, but don’t know how to put
them here, or I would. However, if you go to my Twitter
account at WealthOfHealth, you will see my beautiful
granddaughter along with my two grandsons.