By Debbie Gibson
At the end of the school year last year I was gifted by one of my students with a beautiful rose bush. I planted it right beside my front porch so I could see it as I come and go, and remember that beautiful things happen on a daily basis. The bush has not failed to deliver. It has bloomed and bloomed, and is now blooming again before the soon-coming frost creeps by and kisses it. I sniffed and gazed at the flowers this morning as the fog was caressing Old Castlewood and I thought about blooming and dying, leaving a fragrance, sometimes being prickly, and how all of those things come to each of us in due season. Who knew one tiny bush could spark such thought frenzy?
Blooming is hard work. The right conditions have to be present for a bloom to appear. Adversity always comes to a plant, and a person, in the process of blooming. Lack of warmth, drought, pests, poor soil, and being picked before prime picking time will all do a number on the attempt to bloom. All of us have known someone whose life is filled with a chill. Personal drought is even more devastating, in that it slowly withers the mere attempt to bloom. Pests show up uninvited, someone usually has to help with nutrient deficiency in the soil of life, and cruelly, some are picked before their full beauty is even known to the world.
Dying is hard, too. We have occasion to die to self on a daily basis. We lay down our selfishness so that another may be blessed. We die to bad habits and bad attitudes, and the world around us is transformed. If you think about it, we are really born to die. Just as a flower goes to seed, so too does our life. What we sow, we reap, and what we sow others often reap. As a teacher, I understand this. I sow seed on a minute-by-minute basis. Some seed I see mature, and some seed is long in coming. It matters not to me, I only care that the seed eventually comes forth and makes the world a better place.
Fragrance of life is a reminder to me that everywhere one goes something is left behind. That fragrance may be sweet or putrefying. When the petals are crushed on a rose the scent rises up and wafts into the air. Could we say the same about ourselves? If you live long enough, you will be crushed. Someone will thoughtlessly step on you, break your heart, take you for granted, or deceive you. You can hardly be responsible for another person’s actions, but you can be responsible for the fragrance you emit after the injury.
But what do we do with these thorns? Thorns protect the rose from animal and human predators. I suppose our own thorniness arises as an attempt at protection also. If you have been taken advantage of, let’s say financially, you grow a thorn when it comes to your pocketbook. If the love you offer is thrown away, you grow a thorn so another individual of the same mettle cannot get next to your tender care. The thorn has its divine purpose.
I want that tiny rose bush to survive the winter and come back to me when the snows and chill pass. I want it to remind me of the ways we are alike in intent and desire. I also want it to serve as a reminder that even a thing of beauty is vulnerable. But most of all I want it to remind me that everything and everyone has a season to bloom, a season to rest, natural enemies, and circumstances that must be adapted to. Then, when time is full, we’ll perish, but happily not before we lend our beautiful nature to those around us! Here’s to the bloom, the fragrance, and even the thorn!
