Roses - The Flower of Endurance

Have I told you about my roses? Yes, this funky little cottage came with a rose bush. It's starting to bloom and it's simply lovely.

It's prompted me to read a little about roses lately. Did you know that the oldest living rose bush is in Hildesheim, Germany growing against a cathedral. Some documentation says that it's been there since 815! During World War II bombs were dropped nearby causing the bush to catch fire, but because the roots remained unharmed the bush was able to grow back and still flourishes today. Now that is a resilient flower!

Roses are interesting because most varieties only grow well with "hard" pruning. This means that once or twice a year you have to cut your lovely rose bush back to barely anything at all, trusting that it will grow back twice as beautiful. The dictionary defines pruning as "cutting away dead or superfluous parts of a plant in order to improve shape or growth". And, of course, after you cut all of this away it does come back even prettier than the previous year. We call it the flower of love, but maybe it should be the flower of endurance.

Then again maybe that's what love is - a lifetime of endurance. Maybe in order to truly love we have to cut away the past, the dead, the decayed. Maybe this is the only way love is able to grow. Maybe it's possible for love to be burnt to ash, yet endure, because the roots are still strong. That gives me great hope.

So for now I'll enjoy these beautiful blooms. Then in the fall I will cut them away in hope that new, bigger blooms will return next year. But I will certainly have more sympathy for my rose bush when it comes to pruning. It may be necessary, but it still hurts.