The Rose

Image can be found here...

"Just remember, in the Winter, underneath the bitter snow.  Lies a seed, that with the sun's rays... in the Spring becomes the rose...."   

There's two plastic containers that sit on the top of Kurt's dresser in our bedroom.  My dresser in my bedroom.  One is full of a variety of dried flower petals.  The multitude of flowers people sent me upon hearing of Kurt's passing, painstakingly dried on cookie sheets for days in the cold oven.  It was my mom's idea.  One of the best she had.  They say that the nose has a memory - that smell is a powerful scent when evoking memories of past places and times.  When i feel really low, really down, I can remove the top from that container, run my hand through the petals, and breathe in their fragrance.  Taking me back to the days where my kitchen became a florist shop.  Reminding me how people showed they cared.

The second plastic container is also filled with petals.  From 11 red roses.  Those petals represent who I was.  Who I still see myself to be.  And who I hope to someday be again....      

There's a story to those petals, which starts and ends with tears.  On July 04, 2007, Kurt came home with 11 roses.  With those 11 roses in hand, he asked me to be his wife.  He then proceeded to tell me the reason for the 11.  He said I was his 12th rose.  I completed the dozen, just as I completed him.  In true love.  I said yes.  And the tears fell.

From that moment forward, Kurt never gave me a dozen roses.  It was always only 11.  Every bouquet, every time.  Until the day he died.  So it was only fitting that I give him back the 11 roses.

He couldn't have 12.  He couldn't have me yet.

He didn't need 12.  He already had me...

Two bouquets flanked his urn on the day we said goodbye, each with 11 red roses.  From one bouquet I painstaking removed every petal, and dried them with the rest.  Those 11 roses sit separate from the rest of the dried flowers.  They are not representative of the people who grieved with me, who cared for him.  They are him.  I finger them, take in their fragrance when I need to call him near.

The other 11 roses were also dried, intact.  They sit in the same vase as they did that day.  My silent memorial to him.  In a place of honour, flanked by simple words of inspiration.  I go there to talk to him sometimes, when his urn and his being seem so far away.  To seek guidance.  Support.  And strength.  And to just spend time with my husband.

His final bouquet to me.  My final bouquet to him.

The day I laid Kurt to rest, I placed a single red rose next to his urn.  His rose is never far away.  On the day I join him, it is my hope that the 11 roses are also returned with me, reuniting in a perfect dozen.

12 roses.  Him and I.  The way it should be.  For all times.