Roses from my Dad by Rosemary Hurwitz

Funny how a sweet fragrance can flood the memory!  Arriving for the summer, I was excited for the lake life at out cottage on ELk Lake, near Traverse City, MI.  I always love coming back around the fourth of July.  It is a thrill to see how our plantings of the previous Memorial Day weekend have flourished.  The ten window boxes, are spilling over with umbrellas of pink, purple and white petunias, and sapphire blue lobelia cascade down the middle of each box, offsetting the sparkling red geraniums and smiling Johnny-jump ups.  “They are the most beautiful and lush that we ever have had,” I exclaim and Caitlin, my daughter, says, “Oh Mom, you say that every year.”  I respond, “I say that about the Christmas tree, these really are the most beautiful, I can remember; just look at them,” I gush.  I guess after a longgggggggg Chicago winter and a wet spring, I am a sponge for beauty, even more than usual. 

Then I walk around to the glittering blue lakefront, where Sadie, our dog, has jumped off the dock for her ” Yay, I”m at the lake-watch out -here I come-swim.”   I  peruse the flowers and grasses that border the deck, and see such a suprise!  My deep pink rosebush has 8 large blooms, and their scent is so heavy, it momentarily intoxicates me.  I bend my head down and get my nose close to the bloom and draw in a deep breath, and see my Dad.  He is cutting the same heavily scented deep pink rose and is cutting two of them, one for me and one for my mother.  He tells me to breathe in it’s scent, and I say, “wow, Daddy that is really pretty.”  He says to bring in one to my mom, and put one in a bud vase near my bed.  Then I give him a hug and say” thanks,” and happily run in to show my mom.  I am ten.

The next image is of him bringing in more of these pretty pink red roses in a vase to me and my sisters room, one early morning when we did not want to wake up yet .  Another picture comes to mind,  of him bringing one into the house to give to my mother, maybe after a fight.

All I know is these roses have the exact same scent and he is there again with me.  I  tell him how much I have missed him in the almost six years since he’s passed, and I am grateful for these roses.  Then I ask him about the pennies…….MORE LATER