A short story I wrote Freshman year for Creative Writing class. Every Valentine's Day needs a story about roses, right?
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Little Hope Boston kneeled over the grave. Tears pooled in her chocolate brown eyes. "Grandmother," she whispered hoarsely, pulling her copper-tinted curls away from her face, and baring tear-striped cheeks.
"Hope, it's time to go back now," Mamma said. She placed a gentle hand against her daughter's trembling shoulder. "Grandmother Wheeler is in heaven now. It's all for the best, dear." She turned to walk towards the buggy, hefting up her long skirts so that they would not be soiled in the damp morning grass. She glanced back in Hope's direction. "Come along, child."
Hope used her sleeve to wipe away a new tear that tracked across her wan face. "Goodbye, Grandmother," she murmured, and she left her final gift against the fresh soil- a sweet pink rose that was only recently cut from her grandmother's prized rose bushes. And then with one last gaze at the looming gravestone, she chased after her mamma and climbed into the black buggy.
A few days of tortured sorrow passed by, leaving Hope with dry eyes and a wilted spirit. Hope had never been so long her whole life without her best friend- her grandmother- by her side. The hours were long and dreary.
Hope was lying miserably in bed one afternoon when Mamma went to her and said, "You're getting paler with each passing day, Hope. Take a walk around the garden and put some roses into those cheeks."
Hope obeyed and went outside, walking about the back gardens. The gentle sun stroked her hair and lifted her spirits, and she soon found herself skipping about, almost like she had before. She skidded to a sudden halt when she saw her grandmother's prized rose bushes. They were wilted and browning, parched from lack of water.
"Oh no, Grandmother!" Hope cried out, tears rising anew. How many long hours had Grandmother spent toiling in this garden to keep her roses alive? And now they were all dying.
Hope scurried into her house and returned with a watering can, full to the brim and sloshing at her feet. She sprinkled the water gently over the bushes, careful not to bruise the roses' tender petals. After their drink, the flowers
did look a bit healthier. Feeling satisfied and hungry, Hope set the watering can beside the flowers and skipped back inside.
Days, and then weeks, passed. The roses bloomed once again and were nourished, smiling cheerfully at the sky as if to say, "Thank you, Jesus, for giving us a new caretaker." Hope blossomed as well. Each day she would hurry to the garden and tend to the precious rose bushes, watering the soil and clipping away dead leaves and unwanted weeds. Roses came back to her cheeks as well, and she often talked to the flowers as if they were Grandmother... and indeed, a little piece of Grandmother was in them.
Hope was given a silver-colored kitten for her seventh birthday. She was often seen taking her kitty to the garden. She would watch with a careful gaze as her charge bounced and played amongst the thorny flowers.
Years flew by, and the garden was nearly abandoned by a young girl swept away by her handsome prince. Walks in the rose garden... a first kiss... and suddenly the girl lived there no longer, and the flowers were left to grow free.
More long years passed, and the girl returned, large with a baby and shadowed with grief at the loss of her husband to the war. The roses again became an escape from her suffering. Watering and clipping and hoeing until it all became too difficult, Hope cared for the roses herself. When the growing child inside of her grew too heavy, she had her eldest daughter tend the bushes under her watchful eye.
The roses bloomed and flourished under the years and years of care. Each season, just as she had done as a little girl, Hope would place a tiny blossom atop her grandmother's grave, and a tearful smile would spread across her face in memory of the kind lady who had given her childhood so much pleasure.
Decades flew away, and young turned to old, until generations began passing by. The rose bushes continued to bloom and grow through the seasons, even with no caretaker and a few fresh graves to lie beside Grandmother Wheeler's.
Spring was coming to a close when three forms walked carefully through the damp garden. They were three girls: a frail, old woman with a back bent from age; a younger lady dressed in fine silk; and a skipping little girl. They were all moving towards the rose bushes.
The younger lady gasped when she saw them. "It's just as I remember them, Mamma! They're still alive. Imagine that."
"They're still here," the old woman acknowledged. She gazed lovingly at the child that pranced about before her. "Polly, go fetch a watering can from the shed back there, and water these poor things. Just as I watered them for my Grandmother Hope, and just as your mother watered them for me, you will now receive the task of caring for these poor, old roses."
"Yes, Grandmamma," the curly-haired child replied, and she scurried away to fetch some water.
Slowly and painfully, the ancient woman plucked three rose blossoms from the bushes, and she shuffled down the path and around the corner until she reached a tiny cemetery. She set a rose on three of the grassy mounds: the graves of Hope, Grandmother Wheeler, and that of her own dear mother. A tear tracked down her wrinkled cheek, and she brushed it quickly away. Soon she too would sleep eternally in this peaceful setting, in the space next to her mother.
"Grandmamma, I have the water," Polly sang out, pulling along a rusty watering can that sloshed water onto her feet.
The old woman smiled in reply, and she hobbled wearily to where her precious granddaughter stood, waiting with the watering can. "Gently, dear," she murmured. "You don't want to bruise the soft petals."
Little Polly sprinkled the water onto the roses, giggling as a butterfly sprung from the dark green leaves and flew into the air. She skipped out of the garden soon after, her hand tucked firmly into that of her grandmother's. "I love this place," she declared, and her mamma brushed the copper-colored locks out of her face.
"It's time to go now, dear."
The child left with a last, longing glance at the garden. The roses smiled back at their newest caretaker. Living for both new and old, gone and yet to be born, they blossomed every summer, a symbol of both peace and eternal life.
And so they grew... and they grow on to this day.
