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“Sweet as the breath of roses blown / The fragrance of her life.” Alice E. Allen from My Mother’s Garden.

This is going to be another Mother’s Day for my family without the welcome presence of my mother who passed away in 2005. On this special day that year, our house was still filled with floral tributes that had been sent to our family. At the time, the fragrance of her life–that essence–was all around us on Mother’s Day.

This is one of the poems I read during my mother’s eulogy. This is called The Rose Still Grows Beyond The Wall by A. L. Frink.

“Near a shady wall, a rose once grew, / Budded and blossomed in God’s free light, / Watered and fed by morning dew, / Shedding its sweetness, day and night.

“As it grew and blossomed fair and tall, / Slowly rising to loftier height, / It came to a crevice in the wall, / Through which there shone a beam of light.

“Onward it crept with added strength, / With never a thought of fear or pride. / It followed the light through the crevice’s length / And unfolded itself on the other side.

“The light, the dew, the broadening view / Were found the same as they were before; / And it lost itself in beauties new, / Breathing its fragrance more and more.

“Shall claim of death cause us to grieve, / And make our courage faint or fail? / Nay! Let us faith and hope receive: / The rose still grows beyond the wall.

“Scattering fragrance far and wide, / Just as it did in days of yore, / Just as it did on the other side, / Just as it will forevermore.” The poem was featured in the 1936 Doubleday collection, Best Loved Poems Of The American People.

Having gone through what my family is still experiencing three years later, the only thing I can suggest right now is that you celebrate the lives of the special women in your family. No matter how short or how long their time here, there will come a time when you will wish you could just have a few moments more to say the things that sometimes get set aside until another time. I’m fortunate that I did get that opportunity to say what needed to be said before she closed her eyes and moved on to the next chapter…

At no time in my life do I feel her essence as I do right at this moment on Mother’s Day. But the fragrance of her life remains the same. It’s just sweetening another place, shedding its wonderful perfume in another time.

By the way, my mother’s name was “Rose”.

***

Don Jackson

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