Rose Garden of Days Gone-By

My mother had a rose garden. By all accounts, it was lovely in its hey-day. By time I grew old enough to remember it, a tree my parents had planted close-by had grown so tall so as to totally block any sun from reaching the little patch of roses. The once-beautiful bushes had by then been reduced to a few straggly sticks sporting but few leaves. Actually, one could hardly tell from the remains that such life and beauty had ever existed there. The Secret Garden. It is helpful to have the good fortune of possessing some pictures from days long ago that I don't even remember. I can see in my mother someone who loved the outdoors and gardening. She passed that love on to her daughters, though she didn't live long enough to see the realization of it. I also see a charming, petite woman who took care to dress herself well, in addition to dolling up her little girls. Later on, my sister and I became such avid tomboys that my mother surely must have wondered if she had given birth to any daughters at all! Hopefully she had her fill of girliness in our younger days! I think my mother loved her rose garden while it lasted.

Like the rose that emanates a lingering fragrance, so a photo issues a lasting memory. ~Beanball