Roses in December?
By Bill Shepard
Someone wrote: “God gave us the gift of Memory so that we could have Roses in December.”
That is such a beautiful line; I wish I could have written it first. I have pondered as to what the writer might have been thinking, and I have often wondered if he or she might have been referring to the “December of old age.”
Roses in December? Along the white rail fence that borders my front yard, red and white roses decorate the landscape from early until late summer. When the cooler days of fall and early winter arrive, my roses drop their petals to the ground, and their beauty is hidden from my view. Soon the leaves, so lush and green during summer fade, and give way to the change in season. All that is left of my beautiful roses are the bare stems reaching upwards, a sure sign that summer is past, and winter has arrived.
On the cold and blustery days that follow, when the sun doesn’t break through the gray skies, I often bundle up and walk along the paths where the roses once blossomed. Though the roses are not there, and only the bare stems remain, yet in my mind’s eye, I can still see their beauty, and sense their presence. Sometimes I think I can smell their sweet fragrance permeating the air about me. It is at such times that the words of the writer become more real, and I experience, “Roses in December.”
To have roses in December, they must be cultivated in the early months of springtime. Long before I enjoy the beautiful roses that bloom in my yard, I spend long hours at hard work, planting, pruning, and digging around them. That may also be true of the roses we enjoy in the December of our old age.
On a leisure ride through the countryside in late summer, I have often viewed someone’s beautiful flower garden. It would cause me to want to rush home and start one of my own. “Too late,” I would say to myself, “but maybe next year!” It may be a harsh truth that many people spend a lifetime doing just that; always procrastinating! Finally, the December of their lives arrives and there are no roses to remember. I can think of nothing sadder.
Like roses, beautiful memories must be made before the winter of our lives arrive. That truth is set forth in the Holy Book and we would do well to give heed to it. One writer wrote, “Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them.” Eccl. 12:1 KJV
Now, in the December of my life, I am thankful for the beautiful roses that I view from my rocker. Many of them are buried deeply in the soil of my native town, the place that I shall always call home, Darlington.
For many years the old house that sheltered me as a child stood vacated and silent. The ravages of time took their toll against it. The old couple who had spent much of their lives at the old place were gone away, never to return. Together, they had watched their young grow to adulthood and leave the old home place to begin a new life on their own.
On various occasions, I would return to the old place and walk among the memories of a time long past. Near one corner of the old house a beautiful red rose bush grew. It was placed there in the springtime of the old couple’s lives. It had been cultivated with tender care, and each springtime and summer that followed, the rosebush responded, adding beauty and fragrance to its surroundings. Now, the rose bush is gone, but it still furnishes roses in the December of an old man’s mind.
Near to the rose bush, a red camellia added its brilliant color to the already lovely space. The camellia had been placed there by my sister many years before. As a young girl, working at Rose’s Dime Store in Darlington, she had purchased the small plant and carried it home to be placed near the rose. There, the two grew alongside each other, each in its own way brightening the corner where they grew.
Today, the place where the old house stood is quiet and still. The building has been demolished, and the old couple and most of the young have departed to their long home in the beyond.
The camellia and the rose no longer bloom in the springtime, but their fragrant memories remain, and one who remembers, enjoys “roses in December!
The poet, Thomas Moore, said it so eloquently:
Long, long be my heart with memories filled.
Like the vase in which roses have once been distilled.
You may break the vase if you will,
but the scent of the roses will hang around still.
