Last year was very emotional for me. My mother died, and so did the last one of her five brothers. Shortly after Mom passed away, I slipped on a muddy slope and shattered my ankle. I attended her graveside service sitting in a car, listening to the ceremony through an open window.
With all this having happened, it was with considerable dread that I faced the anniversaries of our middle daughter's birth and death. She died at just 10 weeks of age. Those two months near the start of winter have long been my "sad season" when tears often come at the oddest of times.
However, this time the season was brightened by two rosebuds.
This has been a warmer than usual winter in Oregon. While our weather is usually mild and wet, there is often some snow and several hard freezes during the winter months. We've had quite a few days of frost and a tiny bit of wet snow, but nothing close to normal. The oregano and parsley plants didn't die down, as they usually do. The chives I'd chopped down to ground level quickly sprouted back.
In November, green leaves started opening on the rosebush near our front door. As the date of our baby's birthday neared, it became evident that a rosebud was forming in a spot immediately in front of the entranceway door. I thought there was no way it could survive and berated myself for not trimming the bush at the end of summer. Surely the tender new growth would wither in icy weather and sap strength from the plant. However, despite several nights where the thermometer dipped below freezing, the bud refused to die.
Each time I walked out the front door, the rosebud would be there, at about eye level. It was starting to look a little beat up at the beginning of January, but miraculously, near the date of Andrea's funeral, it started to open.
One of my friends, who also lost a baby, refers to the day her son died, as his “Angel Day.” She feels that day he became an angel. It is a sweet thought, but to my logical mind, such a thing is not possible.
However, I hold some hope that our souls live on after the body dies. That is discussed a bit in an old diary, “Our Sad Season” and it also relates how there was an appearance of a rosebud on the day of our baby daughter’s funeral.
Perhaps it is a little superstitious, but I can’t help thinking that our Andrea sent that lovely rosebud. It helped to soften the blow of yet another anniversary of her death, during an especially trying time.
This is the best picture I could get of "Andrea's Rose." Every angle seemed to have too much light in the picture, and it would be washed out.
Because it grew on a remarkable bush, the rose has a very special meaning. Also, it is yellow, my favorite color for roses.
Several years ago, my mom worked out a deal. An avid gardener, she would come over to trim our rosebushes while I filled out her tax form. It was a good arrangement for both of us.
Once she accidently clipped a bush to the ground and thought she’d killed it. I told her not to worry; it wasn’t in a good place anyway. Regardless, she immediately purchased a replacement, and planted it right by our front door. The original rosebush came back from its roots, a clipping from it grew into a new bush, and the replacement Mom bought thrives despite being neglected for many years. I got three for one!
Touched by the sight of the rose growing on the bush my mother had picked out just for me, I decided to photograph it. It didn’t seem like a difficult task, but it took several tries to get even one shot where the flower was clearly visible.
When trying to take a picture of "Andrea's Rose," another rosebud was discovered. This one I think of as "Mom's Rose," since it looks like it will start to open around the anniversary of my mother's death.
It was almost a year ago that a person from Hospice called. Over a decade before that, I'd helped Mom fill out an "Advanced Directive" and she listed me as her representative. The Hospice staffer asked if Mom had "quality of life." While I suspected what was to come, I could not honestly say that she did. With that verification, the Directive was put into force and everyone was told that no more life-prolonging measures were to be used for Mom's care. Hospice brought in a hospital bed and anything else needed to ensure her comfort. They made sure that Mom would be allowed to go quietly when her time came, and that no one would try to resuscitate her.
When Mom had started to decline, we tried to keep her living in her home as long as possible. She started to wander and to get delusional, so we had to put her into a residential facility. Fortunately, they treated her very well there. Although she had always been very physically fit, she started to have many health problems. After a little over a year in the residence, she began to show signs of the "end of life process."
At first, it looked like she would pass away almost immediately, but she rallied and was up playing catch and dancing. We thought perhaps she'd beaten death, but after a couple weeks, she was bedridden again. This time she never awoke. The last few days she would lie as if in deep sleep, but her right hand was always closed. It was as if she was holding something.
Since she had dreamed of her mother often during her last year, I have hopes that she felt she was holding onto her mother's hand until the end. Unfortunately, although I'd spent as much time as possible with her, she passed away when I was at home asleep. However, she went quietly, just as she had wished.