I found this rose by the side of my house. It shouldn’t have been a surprise because I planted it there, but I can’t help but feel pleasantly perplexed when something I plant thrives…in spite of me.
There were others on the bush, waiting to bud out. It was as if I was seeing a tiny miracle in my yard. A green thumb on my own hand emerging.
I promise not to let it go to my head. I don’t have visions of grandeur. Martha Stewart’s job as grand mistress of gardens and kitchens is still in tact.
She must be relieved.
There are many gardeners in my family. My mother has her own garden of flowers. My cousin is a certified Master Gardener. My suegra might as well be – she knows nearly every plant by name and how to care for it!
What’s a suegra? I’m working on my Spanish, and suegra is a much more pleasant sounding Spanish word for mother-in-law.
I realized this rose bush beside my house has helped me see the importance of the women in my life. It’s perfect timing too, with Mother’s Day just around the corner.
So here’s a nod to my miraculous flower garden and early thoughts of thanks to the amazing women in my life, including those named here and others not.
And so our mothers and grandmothers have, more often than not anonymously, handed on the creative spark, the seed of the flower they themselves never hoped to see – or like a sealed letter they could not plainly read. — Alice Walker
