A Wild Rose

My mom used to say that Mama Bea could grow anything. Mom thought it was the dirt she used from the barnyard. I think it was Mama Bea. Besides the huge vegetable garden, her yard was full of flowers. I don’t remember what she grew; I just know she grew a lot of it. There were some flowers that she identified as poppies to me one time. She said that they helped you sleep at night. I didn’t ask any questions. She had the elusive green thumb that seems to have disappeared from the DNA chain after her. She once dropped a nail on the ground and the following spring there was a hardware store in that very same spot. She was good.

Mama Bea enjoyed sharing her plants with others. I think she took great delight in digging up a plant, wrapping the root ball in a paper sack and sending it off to another home. The house where I grew up was surrounded by plants and flowers that had migrated from Shake Rag to Grenada. Along the back fence there was a rose bush that had come from Mama Bea’s. It must have been twenty feet long. Someone said it was a wild rose. Every spring it bloomed for about a week and then it was done.

When Dad died, I dug up a piece of the bush and took it back to Waco. I planted it in a sunny spot, watered it and waited . . . and waited . . . and waited. Nothing. Three years went by and the bush not only did not bloom, it didn’t grow, not even an inch. I guess being wild also means being stubborn. When we moved to Huntsville, I dug up the pitiful plant, threw it in a bucket, put it in the truck and planted it some three months after moving into our new home. After just a few days, it began to perk up. It grew . . . and grew . . . and grew. I think it sent runners out at about the rate of a foot a day. Then in May, like it always did in Grenada and has ever since here in Huntsville, it began to put on buds, little bitsy buds that begin with a yellowish tint and then open to white blossoms. Today, right now, there are about two hundred blossoms on the bush. They will showcase their beauty for about a week and then they will be gone until next year.

The wild rose requires a lot of work for just a week’s worth of enjoyment. I’ll cut it back at least three times during the summer and will suffer the pricks of some wicked thorns. It will never be tamed. But it is worth it, at least for me. The bush begins calling to me with the first signs of spring each year. I’ll peak out a window watching for the first of those tiny buds to appear. They are reminders. They remind me of a childhood that is long since gone, along with my parents and my grandparents. They remind me of the good and the bad of growing up at 922 Franklin Street in Grenada, MS. They remind me of my roots in Shake Rag and a farm that nourished many bodies and my soul.

“A wandering Aramean” the Hebrew grandfather begins as he recounts the story of his people. He remembers, because it is important to remember, the good and the bad, the lean times and the times of abundance, the delicate blossoms and the wicked thorns. We remember because where we came from makes us who we are and what we will become. We remember because it is important to recall God’s presence through all that life offers: the celebrations and the healing graces of pricks from life’s wicked thorns. Despite our hard work, life will always be untamed offering us a full slate of experiences. Thanks be to God for His faithfulness through all of it. Deuteronomy 26:5ff