Roses Are Red My Love {voices from beyond}

Hello friends!

My late mother loved roses. It has been five years now since she left this mortal coil, but a long time before she died, she spoke that she wanted one single red rose on her coffin. However, when the time came, I couldn't bring myself to do this as I felt she meant it to come from my father, who had died a few years earlier. So I bought a beautiful wreath instead.  Then this happened.

Years ago, when I lived abroad. I used to send money to one of my cousins who would go and purchase flowers for my mother from me on Mothering Sunday every year. One year we discussed it and she bought a potted miniature rose instead of the usual bouquet of cut blooms. After the potted rose had served its time, Mum planted it into the garden where it flourished and grew. Some 30 years passed, and the small rose survived. 

During the last few years of my mother's life between my duties of caring for her as she slowly succumbed to Alzheimer's. and my own illness of Parkinson's starting to take hold the garden started to suffer from neglect. The borders became overgrown, and plants  choked and died. There was no sign of her rose. Where I live, roses flower from the Spring to late Summer. By the end of September, they are spent.

Fast forward to the morning of my mother's funeral on a cold and windy November morning.  I came out of the house to get into the limo and as I walked past the borders I noticed. not much bigger than the size of a 50 pence piece a red bloom in the middle of all the overgrown weeds. I had to stop to take a closer look. I could scarcely believe my eyes Here we were in the middle of November  and the tiny flower that I could see was a single red rose flowering on the plant that I had given my mother all those years before and I had given it up for dead amongst the weeds. Can you even begin to imagine how I felt at that moment?  November, when the roses should have stopped flowering and this particular plant was being choked by the weeds that surrounded it. And here we were on the morning of my mother's funeral, looking at a single red rose.  I was being reminded of the request that she had made years earlier and it was being fulfilled.

Here are a few pictures of some of her roses.

Then a few months later there was this.

It was January, three months without Mum, and I had been very down and unhappy since Christmas and missing Mum more than words can say. My neighbour asked me to go down to Whitesands with her so I did. It was a beautiful day, cold but blue skied, and the tide was way out. As we walked along the vast expanse of sandy beach, I suddenly felt myself being drawn instinctively away from the path I was treading across the beach. A few feet away, a tiny heart shaped piece of sea glass called out to me and I answered its call.

Just to say, Whitesands is  a big beach, especially when the tide is out, see above, and it is not known for its sea glass, yet I found this tiny piece of heart shaped glass. I have never found sea glass before. This is my first piece I have ever found.

I don't know if you believe in the afterlife, or voices from the great beyond. but between the experience of the glass heart and the single red rose, there is no doubt in my mind. None whatsoever.

Until next time. 

Stay safe. Stay well. Stay warm.

Debbie.