You love the roses - so do I. I wish
The sky would rain down roses, as they rain
From off the shaken bush. Why will it not?
Then all the valley would be pink and white
And soft to tread on. They would fall as light
As feathers, smelling sweet; and it would be
Like sleeping and like waking, all at once!

George Eliot

Gertrude Stein, who wrote the poem Sacred Emily, wrote the sentence “A rose is a rose is a rose.”  I am no avid poetry or literary interpreter.  I didn’t understand one iota of Shakespeare.  It had nothing to do with my very fine high school English teacher who definitely knew her stuff.  I guess it’s my direct, black and white ways of communicating that inhibit me from seeing the symbolic meaning behind the words.  So when I write about Stein’s most famous quote, I could very well be writing a bunch of malarkey. 

Ms. Stein may have intended her poetic sentence to symbolize much more than my simple face-value interpretation, such as her use of three-fold repetition to prove a point.  But while a rose will always be a rose, meaning “things are what they are”, there’s a lot more to a rose than just its simple yet exquisite makeup of soft, fragile overlapping petals that give off a sweet aroma, or its prickly thorns that catch me off guard every time I prune them. 

For instance, the roses pictured above will forever be etched in my heart.  They are not just roses.  They were given to me on a morning after a sleepless night.  Which means they were given to me on a morning my eyes were wet with tears.  They were presented to me as I walked into the kitchen at my parents’ home after taking a nap to catch up on sleep.  The hands that were holding the bouquet could fit into one of mine, lined with dimples on the knuckles and rolls around the wrists.  While held lovingly secure in his grandmother’s arms, the giver’s eyes, set in a deep blue with the shapes of glistening stars sparkling outward from the pupils’ center, fixed on mine as he saw me walking towards him.  The face, the face of innocence and purity, without a hint (and rightly so at this time) of any pain in this world.  As his very own hands grasped what to him was a new discovery to his visual, olfactory, and tactile senses, I was having a new experience of my own that sent a sense of refreshment and euphoria up and down my very being.  They were the first flowers, gorgeous and delicate pink they were, that I have received from my child.  The first set of blossoms that will now be dried and tenderly tucked away for safe keeping for me to gaze upon twenty years down the road.  Be still my heart.

Having sat at my bedside until they came to their imminent death, I’d fall asleep looking at them, thinking of the precious one who gave me a gift.  A gift of love and acceptance.  Sometimes I’d abruptly be awakened by the cries of the giver and breath a deep sigh, holding my breath and praying that the cries would quickly subside without intervention.  Then the morning would come too soon.  Though my flesh felt tired and weary, I’d look at those flowers, whatever wee early morning it was, and remember the image of turning the kitchen corner and being swept away by the surprise before me, and know that, being a mommy is worth it.

A rose is a rose is a rose, that is true.  But the rose given to me that July morning will hold much more meaning to me than being simply a rose.  It will hold an image of a face, of hands, and of eyes that belong to the one who gave me that delicate keepsake of a rose to help me remember it is worth it, it is worth it, it is worth it.