Author and Columnist Shelly Reuben

The “Rose” in the title isn’t the name of a woman. Not even one with a porcelain complexion, dainty hands, and glistening sapphire eyes (as you can see, I have read a LOT of Victorian novels).

No. The poor rose of whom I speak is sitting in an elegant lead-glass bud vase – very heavy. It would make an excellent weapon – dark red, with graceful petals formed in the shape of a still-perfect flower. Sadly, though, the petals have dried out completely. I don’t want to declare, like a forensic pathologist, that the rose is D - E.- A.- D (I’m spelling it out so that she doesn’t hear me), but if Mary Shelley got a hold of her, the author would have to do some quick and dirty grave robbing to make her, like Dr. Frankenstein’s monster, come back to life.

Poor rose.

Problem is, even though she is dehydrated, she is still beautiful, and I can’t bear to discard her. That would be like throwing out summer. Hello, summer. Weren’t you a charming guest just two months ago? I so enjoyed your visit. Won’t you satisfy my craving for sweet breezes, the scent of honeysuckle, and the feel of hot sun against my skin? Do you really, really, really have to go?

Let me tell you something about roses. There are only THREE places where their physical being … their essence … affect me. One is in reality. Buying the shrub. Digging the hole. Bleeding from mishandling the thorns, which always make pin cushions of my arms. Adding fertilizer, covering the hole with soil. Watering it. Waiting. And watching it bloom.

That’s one.

The second is in literature.

The third is in poetry.

Paintings and photographs of roses – even the masterpieces – don’t move me in the least. As far as I’m concerned, they could be wall paper.

But back to my list. We’ve already discussed the real, live roses that one can buy from a good plant nursery. That’s the first.

The most memorable rose in the second category – I didn’t like her, but there’s no question that she had a certain narcissistic appeal – was from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s illustrated classic, THE LITTLE PRINCE. Poor Little Prince. After she arrived on his tiny planet, he fell in love with her, and that, at best, was a losing proposition.

“Oh yes, she was quite vain! … she had soon begun tormenting him with her rather touchy vanity … ‘After dark you will put me under glass. How cold it is where you live – quite uncomfortable. Where I come from…’ But she suddenly broke off. She had come here as a seed. She couldn’t have known anything of other worlds. Humiliated at having let herself be caught on the verge of so naïve a lie, she coughed two or three times in order to put the little prince in the wrong. ‘That screen?’ … Then she made herself cough again, in order to inflict a twinge of remorse on him all the same.”

Also in literature were the roses that Mary (quite contrary!) Lennox discovered in Frances Hodgson Burnett’s book THE SECRET GARDEN. Long abandoned and thought to be dead, the garden became “… a wildernes of autumn gold and purple and violet blue and flaming scarlet … Late rose climbed and hung and clusted” because “Where you tend a rose, my lad ▪ A thistle cannot grow.”

Then, there are poetry’s roses:

John Keats. “I saw the sweetest flower wild nature yields ▪ A fresh-blown musk-rose; ▪ ’twas the first that threw ▪ Its sweets upon the summer: graceful it grew.”

Robert Burns. “O my Luve’s like a red, red rose ▪ That’s newly sprung in June ▪ O my Luve’s like the melodie ▪ That’s sweetly play’d in tune …”

Louisa May Alcott. “Give me a rose ▪ A rose, oh, a rose ▪ That speaks of love in every breath ▪

And whispers joy in the very depths.”

And lastly, most poignantly … we have Thomas Moore’s poem – it reminds me of my mother, who died at age 97, after having lost my father, Aunt Libby, Uncle Jack, her best friends Frieda and Bunny, all of her sisters and most of her brothers (she was one of 12 children) – “‘Tis the last rose of Summer ▪ Left blooming alone ▪ All her lovely companions ▪ Are faded and gone ▪ No flower of her kindred ▪ No rose-bud is nigh ▪ To reflect back her blushes ▪ Or give sigh for sigh!”

Roses.

Which brings us back to my own personal last rose of summer. The one in a glass vase. On the mantle. Above my fireplace.

Over. Done. Lost to life, even though I can’t say aloud (lest she hear me) the word D – E – A – D.

Time to bid her goodbye.

Although I really, truly, don’t want to.

Copyright © Shelly Reuben, 2025. Shelly Reuben’s books have been nominated for Edgar, Prometheus, and Falcon awards. For more about her writing, visit www.shellyreuben.com