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A Red Rose for Mama
by
Robert H. Gilbert, Jr.
Happy
Mother??™s Day to you, dear Mama.
Even though it??™s twenty years since you??™ve been gone.
Happy
Mother??™s Day to you, dear Mama,
I??™ll bring a red rose to you myself someday.
I
remember as a little boy growing up in the mountains of
Kentucky with Ma and Pa, Billy Ray, and Mary Sue.
Billy
Ray was twelve, Mary sue was ten, and I was eight. (I was
afraid to ask Ma and Pa how old they were!) We were a poor
hillbilly family. Pa did not make much money doing odd
jobs, so he couldn??™t afford to buy a car. He barely made
enough to put food on the table and buy clothes and shoes
for us kids to wear to school. We wanted a house like all
the other folks down in the valley, but we knew that Pa and
Ma could not afford a nice house. Ma was a seamstress who
did some sewing for the ladies in town just to get a little
extra money to help Pa. She would go to houses to do
housework. Sometimes it would be raining or snowing, and
the wind was bitterly cold here in the mountains. But Ma
would still go and do the things that she could to help Pa.
Ma and
Pa had a bedroom, and sister had a bedroom, but Billy and I
slept on the dirt floor in two big
sleeping bags zipped together. During the winter, Pa would
put fire logs on the floor with a sheet of plywood on top,
then we put our sleeping bags on top of the plywood. We
might have been poor folks to other people, but we were a
happy family. We had to walk to school five miles every day,
no matter what the weather might be. Each day on the way
home, I would stop at a place where there were many
wildflowers growing, and I would pick two handfuls of
flowers to take to Mama. I would run into the house with a
grin on my face and say, ???Mama, these flowers are for you!???
She
would lean down and take them from my hands. ???Why, they are
very beautiful, Johnny! Thank you.??? She would place them
in a jar and place the jar in the window beside the others
that were full of flowers.
One day
when I got home with the flowers, I asked her what was her
favorite flower of all the flowers in the world. Being a
little boy of eight, I didn??™t know how many kinds of flowers
there were.
Surely, I thought, there must be three or four different
kinds of flowers growing somewhere other than these
wildflowers.
Mama
sat down at the table, placed me on her lap, and said,
???Johnny, I guess the most beautiful flower that I like is
the red rose.???
"I
ain??™t seen no red rose around here, Mama.???
She
just smiled and said, ???No, child, I haven??™t seen any
either.???
???Why a
red rose, Mama????
???When
in full bloom, a red rose has a perfume that is . . . well,
I can??™t describe what kind of perfume it might be called,
but it is like the smell of the air after a rainfall. The
petals are soft to the touch, yet brittle if you squeeze
them too hard, and the stem has thorns to protect the rose
from harm.
???A red
rose is a token of love between a man and a woman. The only
rose I ever got was when your pa asked me to marry him, and
that was fourteen years ago.
???What
happened to the rose, Mama????
She smiled. ???I have it in the family Bible, of course.???
???How much does a red rose cost, Mama????
???Oh, I don??™t know. Maybe three or four dollars apiece.???
???Wow! I have never seen that much money at one
time.???
Mama laughed.
???Would you wait till I am older and get a job, Mama???? I
asked. ???Then I will buy you a red rose.???
Tears came into Mama??™s eyes, and she hugged me
tightly, kissed me on the cheek, and said, ???Surely I can
wait that long.??? We both laughed.
One
spring day, as usual I stopped and picked some flowers to
take to Mama. I was by myself that day, as Billy and Mary
Sue were sick, or so I was told. I listened to a bird
chirping high up in a tree, then another, and another and
another. They were all chirping to each other. Two
squirrels ran up and down a tree, chasing each other as if
playing tag.
I
started skipping and whistling on my way home. As I got to
the yard, I saw three cars parked there.
I had never seen any big cars like these before. One was
red and white with big red lights on top.
Then I saw a star stamped on the side of another one and
knew it was a police car. The third car was so long it must
have carried ten or twelve people in it. I peaked in the
side window, but there were no seats in the back.
I went
up on the porch where Pa, Billy Ray, and Mary Sue stood
waiting. ???Hi!??? I said.
???I got some more flowers for Mama.??? I ran into the house
hollering, ???Mama, I brought you some more flowers.??? But Mama
was not there.
I ran
back to the front porch where Pa was standing. ???Pa, where??™s
Mama???? I asked.
Pa knelt down and held his arms out to me. ???Come
here, child.???
Billy Ray and Mary Sue knelt down with us.
???What??™s
wrong???? I asked. ???Where??™s Mama????
Pa said, ???Johnny you are a little young to
understand all this, but Mama has been sick, and the doctors
did all they could for her.???
???Is that why Billy Ray and Mary Sue stayed home
today????
???Yes,??? Pa said.
???Mama
ain??™t been sick,??? I said. ???She was here when I got home
from school yesterday.
She??™s been right here every day.???
???The doctor has been coming to give her medicine while you
kids were at school ,??? Pa explained. ???She didn??™t want you
children to know about her illness.???
???If the
doctor gave her medicine, then she??™s gonna be all right.
Can I go see her? Is she in bed????
???No,
Johnny, you can??™t. Mama??™s gone.???
???Gone
where? To the hospital????
???No,
Johnny, Mama??™s gone to Heaven. Mama??™s passed away.???
I ran
from Pa??™s arms out into woods, throwing the flowers this way
and that. I fell down on the ground and cried and cried.
Finally I felt strong hands picking me up from the ground.
I looked at Pa and asked, ???What about Mama??™s red rose? She
promised she would be here for me to buy her a red rose.???
Pa didn??™t know what I was talking about. ???You
mean your wildflowers????
I shook
my head. ???I promised Mama a red rose when I was old enough
to get a job.??? I started crying harder. ???Now she won??™t be
here so I can give it to her.???
The day
before the funeral, Ms. Nelly Smith from down in the valley
asked if she could make Mama a new dress. Pa told her that
would be nice of her, and he was sure that Mama would
appreciate it.
Ms. Nelly and Mama had been friends since grade school. I
guess the entire town was there at the funeral, folks I knew
and folks I didn??™t know. When I asked Pa if he knew any of
those people, he said they were friends of Mama??™s from
school. It was standing room only. I never knew Mama had
so many friends.
Before
the funeral, Pa, Billy Ray, Mary Sue, and I walked up to
where Mama was lying. When Pa saw the dress that Mama was
wearing, he broke down in tears. It was the first time I
had ever seen Pa cry. I was too short to see Mama, so Pa
had a stool put by Mama so I could see her. I placed some
wildflowers in her hand.
Her
dress was almost the same colors as the wildflowers I had
gotten for her. Mama, why couldn??™t you wait till I got you a
red rose? I asked silently. I swore I heard Mama say,
???Johnny, the flowers you brought home to me, and these
flowers here, are my red roses. They are more beautiful
than a dozen red roses.???
We
buried Mama out behind the house and planted a field of
wildflowers. We knew she would be happy there. After the
funeral was over, we went back to the house with Pa. Pa had
us three children sit down, and he got out the family Bible.
???I want you children to see a picture that your ma has been
keeping for many years,??? he said.
Pa let
us look at the photograph of him and Mama in their wedding
attire. The dress Mama was wearing at her funeral could
have been the same dress that she got married in.
We all
knew that Mama would be happy wearing that dress.
Several
years passed by. Billy Ray went off to Michigan, got
married, and had four children.
Mary Sue married a local boy from town, and they had three
children. Pa and I lived in the old run-down mountain home.
Billy Ray and Mary Sue tried to get us to move in with one
of them, but he said he did not want to leave Mama.
I
stayed in the old house with Pa, got a job when I was
sixteen, and took care of him the best I could.
I found a beautiful bride when I was
twenty-three. I gave her a bouquet of red roses on her
first Mother??™s Day. We had a beautiful son we named Jerry
Dale.
Pa passed away shortly after Jerry was
born, so my son never did get to know his grandpa.
We boarded up the old house and moved
into town.
I go up to the house every now and then, but I
don??™t stay very long, as the memories are still fresh in my
mind. I have a job as a newspaper editor, and my wife Molly
Ann is my assistant. One of Mama??™s friends keeps Jerry Dale
while we are at work, and every time we go to pick him up,
she tells us a story about her and Mama.
It seemed like our lives had just begun
when my wife became very ill. I watch my son as he brings
flowers to his mother. Mama, watching him do this sure
brings back a lot of memories. I have to go outside
sometimes so they can??™t see me cry. Maybe someday I will
hear him say the same words to his Mama: ???Mama, if you will
wait till I am old enough to get a job, I will buy you a red
rose.???
Happy
Mother??™s Day to you, dear Mama.
Even though it??™s twenty years since you??™ve been gone.
Happy Mother??™s Day to you, dear Mama,
I??™ll bring a red rose to you myself someday.
?© 1994 by Robert H.
Gilbert, Jr.
RGBLUEBOY@aol.com
http://www.geocities.com/rgblueboy/StoryPoetryPage.html
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Blessings to you today
Bob Johnston
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