Covid Journal, Day 90: Roses and Memories of Mom on Her Birthday

56 this morning, absolutely lovely day ahead.

On the corner at the top of our drive,

a patch of wildflowers has taken hold,

and along the road, wild roses, tiny little pink blooms, spreading along the edge of the road for many feet, surprising with their color and beauty in the shade of the overhanging trees.

Which put me in mind of this poem by Wendell Berry.

The Wild Rose

Sometimes hidden from me

in daily custom and in trust,

so that I live by you unaware

as by the beating of my heart,



Suddenly you flare in my sight,

a wild rose looming at the edge

of thicket, grace and light

where yesterday was only shade,



and once again I am blessed, choosing

again what I chose before.


Roses always remind me of my mother. Yesterday was Larry's mother's birthday, today is my Mom's birthday, would have been her 93rd. She too was a lover of roses, especially those with a good sweet scent. I remember she had one that she called her "old English rose". I am not sure what it's true name was, but it was a many petaled flower with the best scent. Not a fancy tea rose, this one, but an old-time, ragged-bloom pink that only bloomed in June.

Mom's childhood home, Ashlyn

Mom was a true English gardener, with borders, as she called them almost all around the yard of our home in Manassas. Many of those plants made the move with her to Warrenton, where she developed new flowerbeds and herb gardens around their smaller new home. I don't think she could have lived anywhere that she was not surrounded by flowers. She had them on her clothes, her teacups, her handkerchiefs.

She passed her love of flowers and gardens on to her daughters, and even to some of her sons. Many of us have large flower and vegetable gardens, and her name often comes up in conversations about our plants because she gave them to us.

We all wonder, I think, what legacy we will leave, what we will be remembered for, what of our traditions will pass down to future generations. Mom would not have been surprised to know that she left us this gift.  I am not sure we have been as successful passing it on, although it hasn't been for lack of trying. I will hope that her love of green living things continues in our family, as we pass around plants, advice, and the produce of what we grow.

So here's another birthday greeting, this time to my mother, who resides with great joy, I am sure, in the greatest garden of all.


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