Oh, Rose

A girl gets a mysterious gift after the death of her rose-loving mother.

She could smell the faint hint of something she had sworn never to go near again. The smell that haunted her dreams as lucid as real life could be. It was too much to take. Why now? When everything seemed almost fine.

The scent of roses. The sick scent of roses.

All the memories came flooding back to her.

Her mother loved roses. She was like the Queen in Alice in Wonderland. She had dozens of rose bushes in their backyard. They were all white. She wondered why her mother preferred white so much. It seemed that most of their house was white. And what winter had passed that her mother hadn’t expressed how lovely the white snow was?

But one season (rose season - Springtime), she was surprised to see the rose garden all red. Her mother, without even mentioning it, had planted red roses this time. It was so lovely to look at against the white paneling of their house; the red spouting from bushes that surrounded their white porch. 

She went inside to ask her mother about the sudden color change. Instead, she found her mother crying against the kitchen counter.

“Mom, what’s wrong?” she asked.

Her mother was still crying when she recited:

“O Rose thou art sick. 

The invisible worm,  That flies in the night  In the howling storm:  Has found out thy bed Of crimson joy: And his dark secret love Does thy life destroy.” 

She was shaken by her mother’s reply. “Mom?” she asked nervously.

“Please go to your room, honey,” was all her mother said.

She later found out the poem was written by William Blake in the 1800s. She also found out that her mother had been diagnosed with fourth stage cervical cancer. Her mother figured that all the pain she had previously been feeling was part of the divorce. It was too late for her now.

It would be her mother’s last rose season. They were all white again. It seemed that red had been a bad decision. It was that season that her mother had gathered her last rose. She was in the garden when she fainted. She had refused chemo a long time ago.

On her death bed, her mother expressed that she wanted to be buried with her roses. Then she turned to her daughter. “I love you, Rose.” 

“Please don’t leave me,” she said.

“You will always have my roses. Keep them alive for me.” She said goodbye.

Rose couldn’t take it. When she went home, she root up all the rose bushes that her mother had planted. She saved those that were blooming, but kept them outside on the porch just for the funeral.

It was the last time she had smelt roses. The ones surrounding her mother’s white coffin overwhelming her in a flood of memories.

Her mother had thrown herself into her roses when Rose’s father had left them. For some reason, Rose blamed them now for her mother’s death.

And now she could smell them again. Smell the roses. Where was that coming from?

She followed the scent to the back door that led to the porch. She thrust it open. Sure enough there was a bunch of white roses on the welcome mat. It had been years since a rose had been on the property.

There was a note. 

“Plant us,” it said. 

Rose’s mother would have been gone 5 years the next day. Melanie Rose.

Author's Note

White roses resemble remembrance. Enjoy the story <3