by Donita Weddle

Created on: August 15, 2008   Last Updated: September 21, 2008

When my mother-in-law Adria married Oliver in 1939, one of their gifts was a rose bush. In a protected area next to their first home, she planted that rose bush. Every June a multitude of lovely, splendidly fragrant pink roses blossomed. It thrived, growing to more than ten feet tall. Oliver was the love of her life. Since that rose bush was his favorite plant out of all the things she grew - and she grew most everything - she took especially good care of it.

Adria was an avid gardener of fruits, vegetables and flowers, a nurturer of all things "garden". Other than Oliver, her garden was her passion. She joked that someday her garden would make the cover of Home and Garden, and surely wished it could be true, yet deep down knew that it would never be. She was too busy and too tired, with so many children to raise, to have the kind of garden she dreamed about as she paged through the catalogs. Many long hours were spent gardening and canning to keep her family fed. Never once, though, did she neglect Oliver's favorite rose bush. As their family grew and they moved to larger houses, that rose bush came too, taking up residence along with them.

Tragically, Oliver was killed in 1966, leaving Adria with eleven children to raise on her own. Unable to manage the apple orchard, she sold both the farm and house to one of her sons and moved into town, leaving the rose bush and so many dreams behind. Although she had every intention of transplanting it to her house in town, before she could do so, the rose bush was cut to the ground by an orchard brush mower. With that loss came all of the memories of Oliver, and a wave of sorrow washed over her. She tearfully yet hopefully dug into the dirt with calloused hands and found but one sprig of that rose bush fighting for life. For several years at her home in town, she tenderly pampered that sprig, until eventually it thrived as it had when Oliver had still been alive.

That rose bush had become a symbol of hope and love, and held for her the memories of who she had once loved so much. As each of her children married and made their own first homes, she gifted them a cutting from that same prolific, pink rose bush that had meant so much to her and Oliver. From where I'm sitting now, I can see our rose bush at the north end of our back yard. Every June, on the anniversary date of his father's death, my husband takes the last of its seasonal blossoms and places them in a vase. From their spot on the kitchen table, he, I, and our children enjoy the fragrance and beauty of those roses as his parents had once done. My husband silently wipes back tears when doing so.

Adria passed away in October 2006, and my husband was there at her bedside, holding her hand, when she passed away. Our rose bush, given to us as a reminder of Oliver, is now also a loving memory of Adria, and the love they shared.

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