Memories of those red roses from long ago

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November 20, 2009

Joe Bowyer Pharos-Tribune Fri Nov 20, 2009, 05:31 PM EST

We never know what will bring them to mind, the loved ones we have lost. Those of us who are lonely are always vulnerable to the whims of our memories. For instance, I might be strumming chords on my guitar, singing some old song Janie and I used to sing together when the tears suddenly come. Then I have to lay my guitar aside and busy myself at some task. (I have many of them.)

Keeping busy is something that is necessary to avoid realizing how horribly empty the house is after our loved ones are gone.

Last weekend I was finally getting around to cleaning off the top of Janie's desk in the kitchen when I noticed in a small dish the tag off of one of the bouquets of red roses I always bought her to remember our wedding anniversary. It was a thank you note, and on it I had written “Thank you for marrying me 48 years ago. I love you more today than I did then.” The 48 years dated it back to 1998. That was 11 years ago I thought, and she has kept it in this little dish all of this time so she could see it occasionally and read it over again.

I left the task of cleaning her desk and walked into our living room and looked out the window to the north just in time to see a fox squirrel come down one of the trees and pick up a walnut from the ground. It climbed back up the tree to the first limb and sat there as it ate the walnut. Janie loved watching the squirrels in the yard, and I could imagine her standing beside me holding onto my arm as she watched. You can’t avoid tears at a time like that.

I started buying roses for Janie for our anniversary because I knew she liked them. It was a bouquet really with roses in it, one for each year of marriage. After it got into the teens, there wasn’t room for other flowers, so it became just roses. Sometimes I would have Warner’s Greenhouse bill me for them, and Janie would pay the bill. She chided me about having to pay for her own roses. I always told her it was my money too, but I didn’t have to tell her that. There never was a day we didn’t consider everything we had as ours except clothes. That joint ownership also pertained to risk-taking, buying cars, building houses, borrowing money, paying it back, etc.

A rose for each year finally became a major expense, so we decided to drop it back to just a dozen roses. Janie said they cost too much, but I know she loved getting them. I found long ago that Janie was that frugal. Even when she got something she really wanted, she had mixed emotions when she wrote the check.

I guess it was because she never had any money and wore hand-me-downs until she was old enough to have a job and earn some money of her own. She was one of the world’s worst and most beautiful tightwads, and it wasn’t until late in life that I could get her to spend money freely for what she wanted. After she got started, she must have supported six or seven charities. That was OK, but I had meant for her to spend the money on herself.

Love is a wonderful thing, and when you find someone who is true to you and loves you in return to the exclusion of all others, you realize what God made love for. That was my Janie’s love, as true to me as a stream is true to the path that leads it to the sea. A love that would allow for differences of opinion, even some shouting on occasion, but never name calling or lack of respect, and never a thought of accepting a life without the other in it.

When one person leaves a partnership such as that, it is always devastating, but the comforting thing is that we lived our lives together. Somehow, God in His wisdom brought us together at the old skating rink at Spencer Park and made our eyes meet. His job was done after that, Janie and I took over from there.

There have been many before us, and there will be many to come. Couples who love each other truly, with respect, with purpose, with passion and without thought of self. We are the lucky ones. Even when one of us loses the other, we know God has truly blessed us.

• Joe Bowyer is a columnist for the Pharos-Tribune. He can be reached through the newspaper at ptnews@pharostribune.com.

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Memories of those red roses from long ago

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