Forget Me Not

On Mother’s Day I went to a tea at the nursing home and one of the residents, an elderly woman sat at the table across the way. She had a beautiful long stemmed red rose and while waiting for the tea to be served she began one by one pulling the delicate petals off the bud. She felt the texture and closely examined the rich red color…both front and back. By the time the aide noticed Miss Dorothy’s dissection, it was too late. All that remained was a pile of petals, a green thorny stem and a few flakes of yellow pollen. I too got a rose and brought it home and put it in a vase, but it never opened. The bud soon drooped on the stem, turned black-red and then shriveled up. Somehow I think Miss Dorothy enjoyed her rose so much more. “To the one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life…” (2Cor 2:16a NIV)