Roses, A Symbol Of Love

“To me Roses are Love. Love can be enchanting. Love can be devastating. Love can also hurt you. Remember roses have spikes and they can make you bleed.

Love only blossoms under care and good management; and Love dies when we betray and we break promises.”

More than anything in the world Stephanie loved roses.

Her passion toward roses started with a magazine given to her by her parents. It was about horticulture. There were many beautiful pictures of roses in it.

When she opened the magazine, it was love at the first sight.

Roses of all colors, pink, white, apricot.

Roses of all sizes, small, middle, large.

Roses were everywhere in all the pictures. It was a heaven with roses. When she asked her parents to bring her there, to that place she saw in the magazine they smiled at her: Silly girl, that garden is in England. We have no money for that trip. Just go to bed and sleep.

Stephanie’s love for roses did not die. One day, on her way back from school, she took a shortcut and by mistake wandered into a beautiful rose nursery.

It was exactly the dream garden on that magazine. Roses blossomed everywhere and the breeze kissed her face carrying the sweet fragrance. Much to her surprise, all kinds of breeds of roses were on sale and her love for roses started to grow.

Yes, Stephanie started to grow roses. She decorated the balcony of her parent’s house, an air garden on the fifth floor.

Everyday Stephanie carried bags of soil, fertilizers, and pots and climbed the stairs on her limbs to reach the top. Such physical work built her muscles, she knew.

“It is true that love makes people stronger,” said Stephanie to her parents, much to their surprise, on the first day when they came to see the air garden in their balcony.

Finally, Stephanie’s garden was complete with more than 200 rose bushes. Each day, just like a man falling for a woman he loves, she spent lots of time on her roses and still always left lots of work undone. Yet, she was in love and she thought she deserved such luxury.

However, roses, like pretty girls, attract insects such as butterflies, bees and other bugs. Stephanie wanted her roses to be healthy, so she refused to use pesticide and herbicide.

When she found bugs eating her roses, she killed them with her bare hands. She became expert in catching flying insects and squeezing them to death. When their juice or blood ran down through her fingers, she felt that she was a hero.

She was a hero that protected her love and her ladies. The taste of chivalry, of being a hero, was quite good, Stephanie thought, but her parents didn’t share the same thoughts.

For her mother, it was a complete mess. Soil everywhere, bugs and worms creeping into the house, and worst of all, the soaring water fee and all the money and time spent on rose collection and cultivation. Then, her father said that she had to focus on her studies and finish her homework and other house tasks they gave her now.

Slowly, she had no time to water her roses, to smell them, to speak to them. At night before closing her eyes, she cried silently. She thought, they die as to punish me for my betrayal.

Eventually, her air garden was empty. No rose blossomed. No love remained. One by one, each after the other they all died.

Stephanie grew to be a lady and never forgot how her beloved roses, all died. Sometimes before sleep, she cries in bed, thinking of her roses. A sense of guilt has kept her from planting any roses for many years.

“What’s in a name? that which we call a rose  By any other name would smell as sweet, “Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet.