This Time of Year

This is the week of my mother's passing nine years ago.  I still miss her so much.  My mother was quite a character to say the least.  This story is so much like my Mother as she could make us laugh and cry at the same time.

A couple of days before she passed away peacefully in her sleep, she had asked a neighbor for a rose from her rose bush.  The neighbor told her she could have one but  not off a particular bush because that bush produced roses that were planted in memory of her deceased husband, Mack.  My mother returned to her house with a rose from another bush.  The day of her passing, the neighbor called me to tell me about my mother.  Upon my arrival, as I entered my parent's home, I saw the most beautiful Peace rose in a vase.  The bloom was full, huge and perfect.  The neighbor came to visit and as she was leaving she spotted the rose.  She said "Bobbie took that rose! I wish now that I had given it to her".  My mother had gone across to the neighbor's bush and cut the rose she originally liked.  We all laughed.  That was my mom!  

After my mom's funeral and of hearing the story, my husband's sister sent me a Peace rose bush.  It has honored me with a rose almost every year on her anniversary.  I hope you enjoy it too.

Ironically, my mother is buried directly above the neighbor's husband.  The joke is that my Mom is nudging "Mack" with her foot.  It is not uncommon to go to my Mom's resting place and see that a rose has "mysteriously" been placed there.