Chapter 30

“He will give them beauty for ashes.”

Isaiah 61:3

By December 10 almost everyone had learned of our tragedy. Tear-stained faces mirrored my own as I opened the door, welcoming mourners bearing food, flowers, and open arms for hugs, friends trying the best they knew how to assist the living in dealing with the dead.

They all had the same questions I had. How could Roma be gone? He was Roma! Roma was invincible. Roma always landed on his feet. God met him around every corner. God was still using Roma. How was it possible that Roma had slipped away from our sight, this time permanently?  None of it made sense. Not without God. And what kind of God allowed this to happen? Did I believe what I had always professed to believe about God? Was He still good? Could He be trusted?

Three days after Roma departed, we suddenly had temperatures reaching seventy degrees where the average high in Maryland in December is in the mid-40s. The sunny warmth was a welcome, healing balm for my broken heart.

I was standing out in the yard talking to the florist delivery woman for the second time that day. As I turned to go back inside, something drew my attention to the far side of the yard. I walked over to get a closer look. At first it looked like scrap of pink tissue stuck on a low thorn on our Knock Out rose bushes. A closer look revealed that it was a pink rose. It wasn’t a perfect rose. It looked as if it had quickly bloomed a few days earlier, with only a few malformed petals. I cut it and put it in a bud vase on the table where all the other florist flowers were displayed. The next day, I noticed two more pink buds. Throughout the week they kept budding. In December. In Maryland.

A pink rose. I had only recently become aware of my apparent obsession with pink roses, when a first-time house guest remarked, “You really love your pink roses.”

Hmm. As I started to observe, I was a little self-conscious of my decoration choices. As an artist, I like to think I have good taste that often runs toward eclectic. I love what I love. But had I overdone the roses? But they are eye-candy for me.  They had “sprouted” so gradually over the years I hardly notice that they now had overgrown the “garden,” if such a thing is possible. They were on my dishes. My salt and pepper shaker were pink rose buds. In the sunroom beside the kitchen, pink roses covered the upholstery on the love seat, the hooked rug on the floor, plates hanging on the wall. A bench, a chest and even the woven wood roman shades that hung on my windows, I had painted with pink roses. And ceramic and dried pink roses were here and there. The sheets where my friend slept and the towels hanging in her bathroom offered more roses. 

Throughout the week of Roma’s death, pink roses in December continued to surprise me with joy.

I couldn’t help thinking of my sweet Roma’s expressed wish to buy me flowers for my birthday, 12 days earlier. Now, I had pink roses blooming in December, in Maryland. For a week, I checked daily, finding new and more perfect pink buds every day. This beauty appeared late in the week. It took my breath and, more importantly, made me smile.

True, it had suddenly become unseasonably warm, so I guess skeptics could try to explain away my miracles of the pink roses blooming in the front yard in December. But skeptics would never explain one thing to my satisfaction. My precious little pink roses were blooming on my red rose bush.

I shared the phenomenon on social media, praising God for His loving kindness and mercy. People shared back their own pink rose sightings, encouraged in their own grief for Roma.

It was easy for me to imagine the JOY in Heaven as God, with Roma in close pursuit, gave me gifts of love, beauty for ashes. 

Continue with Chapter 31