Stop and Smile at the Roses

He was probably in his seventies when he moved into the house on the corner. I passed by every day, so I watched the way he dug into his south-facing front yard and planted roses—lots and lots of roses. He joined the garden club for a time and was the resident rose expert, shyly answering our questions.

He was quiet, but if you asked and listened, he’d tell. A WWII vet, he said. Casablanca. What a shock that had been to a boy like him, he once told me.

He was almost always out there, tending his roses. We both did the farmer-wave when I drove past. Those roses were pouty pinup beauties in every lipstick shade imaginable, kissing every season but the most cold. Every fall I’d watch to see how he gently tucked them in for winter. Every spring I watched to see how he coaxed them out again. They brightened so many drives for a good twenty years.

 I never once saw his wife, but he had one. When I heard she died, I sent him a sympathy note and mentioned in it how much I enjoyed his roses. I ran into him at the gas station shortly after that, and his voice broke when he thanked me.

He never slowed down and he never seemed to age. He only seemed to shrink, as if age had to diminish him that way because he simply refused to weaken.

Then one day I saw some slow-moving people in his yard. Younger people. Funny how you can see grief in a person’s movements from half a block away. I knew then that it was too late and I’d already missed the funeral. They dug up the roses and left only lawn where the For Sale sign went. It broke my heart. Now it’s a normal house again. No—not normal. To me it will always be missing something.

I still look for those roses. Of all the things that man accomplished in his long life, some were great gifts for me. He planted the ideas that it’s never too late to create bright spots in peoples’ lives, and we can do it in even the smallest ways.

Thank you, Mr. Donald Gemeinhart. You are most definitely missed.

He who dies with the least toys wins. Because the more you know, the less you need. ~Yvon Chouinard Patagonia