The Examined Home: Why I Grow Roses

By Loris Nebbia

It happens every year. A friend comes to the door on the same yearly errand. Business finished, she turns to small talk. “Your roses have black spot.” She points to the bush burgeoning with pink buds, already fragrant with the scent of green apples and sweetness. “Oh, well,” I say, as I do every year, “that’s just the way it is in Maryland. And I haven’t had time to treat them. But I’ll get to it.”

“I wonder if they’re worth it. Look at that.” She shakes her head. I roll my eyes and murmur my good-byes and shut the door. I love my roses.

As well as a garden full of roses, my husband and I have been blessed with three sons. Our eldest son was a lovely baby—big brown eyes, a quick and ready grin. He had an eagerness to learn and a cheerfulness that was more dependable than the sun. His disposition for language was shown early. His father and I took him everywhere with us and he was no trouble; we couldn’t wait to see him in the morning, were thrilled with him; we delighted in him.

He was just the sort of older brother I’d hoped for my younger children. He read to them, supervised with some justice, defended them against bullies and bugs.  I loved and enjoyed him more than I can properly express.

And when he went away to college, I planted my first rose.

I missed him and for some reason, roses answered that sense of loss. They require a lot of care and I needed something to do to work out the odd, empty feeling in the pit of my heart. Choosing roses to hold his place may have had to do with a lullaby I sang to him, a song I learned as my grandfather rocked my little sister. “Sweetest little fellow, everybody knows/ Don’t know what to call him, but he’s mighty like a rose.” Can a boy child be “like a rose?” I think so… when you treasure your son or your grandson, he seems to be that sweet, that complex, that mysteriously wonderful, full of promise, and touched with the exquisite fragrance of robust life.

So, I planted roses. The first rose I bought was called “Heritage.” It’s an old fashioned, English rose and it has full, pale pink blooms and a fragrance that is like spices and clean air. In spring, the bush bears five hundred blooms. Really. Their scent meets you as you walk across the lawn and the branches are so heavy they droop ‘til the buds brush the sidewalk.

Though I wasn’t exaggerating in describing Heritage’s prolific bloom, I may have made it sound here as if my son were perfect. He wasn’t perfect. When he was six months old, we discovered he had a life-threatening food allergy. If he ate even a corner of a cookie made with as little as one teaspoon of milk in the batter, his body reacted so violently that he has to be rushed to the hospital before his blood pressure drops too low to sustain his life.

When he was little, most prepared foods contained some sort of milk product and labeling laws were not strict. This we discovered the hard way, and so I had to learn to cook. I enjoyed learning the science of cooking so that I could make delicious things that delighted and nourished him and that did not kill him.

Now my eldest son is a wonderful, creative cook. He bakes bread. He makes the most colorful salads to accompany salmon cooked just right or chicken with a sauce so delicious you’d never imagine such a thing as butter existed. He’s also an exciting and thoughtful teacher, fulfilling a high and worthy calling—and enjoying it.

When my son brought his girlfriend to our home during this week in May one year, she exclaimed over the Heritage roses.  After their engagement, she confided that when she was younger, she had dreamed of her wedding and her husband and those roses—the color, the shape, the scent—were flowering in the dream.

I had been looking forward to the time when my son would marry. I suppose every mother does. And I suppose when a child has physical challenges, a mother might feel more protective. Many times when my son was school age, I was called “over protective” such as when I was explaining to a friend why I brought his food to birthday parties. Her response provoked me to think about life and risk and perfection. She said, “He shouldn’t have children. He should adopt.”  Adoption is a worthy calling, but the implications of her statement were unjust:

As if his life—with his delightful personality and brilliant mind—were not worth cooking food differently!  As if his cheerful concern and uplifting presence did not make up for the concerns and fears that were my constant companions. As if his humanity and his unique calling in the universe were not so far above his seemingly terrible affliction. As if all of his good qualities were not worth passing on!

I think it was in that moment that I began to look forward to holding Eric’s child in my arms.  I suspected that there was more to value in life than perfection.

My son and his wife were blessed with their own little son last year. He has his mother’s beauty and musicality, his father’s rosy cheeks and cheerful disposition. He’s dear and loving; he’s sturdy and blue-eyed like my husband.  He hugs his cousins and bounces with joy when he sees family members!

And he has food allergies.

This child’s life will be good. His parents will feed him carefully and with hope. They’ll nurture him and advise him as they treasure and enjoy him. Who knows what great ideas will come to him, what great joys, what moments of worship and bliss, accomplishment, understanding and compassion? I’m eager to watch and find out. I know his life will be worth the comparatively slight inconvenience of feeding him with deliberate care. I hope to hold his child one day in my arms.

When I planted my first rose, I knew roses required work. I knew about thorns and leaves falling off.  Later I learned about black spot and aphids and beetles eating the leaves to lace. But during this week, this week every year in May, the full flowering of the rose’s power reminds me that though perfection isn’t possible, glory and beauty and wonder bloom with abundance… despite those black spots.

So, I grow roses in the defiance of hope.

About the Author:

Between writing projects, Loris Nebbia has taught English literature and composition to young thinkers at Annapolis and Baltimore County high schools. When she is not teaching or writing, she enjoys making a home for her husband, children and grandchildren.

Loris attended St. John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland, but graduated with a degree in English from UMBC where she also earned her M.A. She returned to UMBC to teach an English education course.

An excerpt from Loris’ first novel, Solomon’s Puzzle, won the Maryland Writer’s Association’s 2010 prize for short fiction. Released in 2010, the book reflects her love for Annapolis with details of local color including the opening scene in which a car crashes into Middleton’s Tavern. Because she believes that literature is not a manual for living, but rather an artistic portrait of what it means to be human, her fiction and essays are meant to show both the nobility and struggle of the every day man seeking to create a thoughtful home on earth. Loris’ essays and short fiction can be read by visiting www.solomonspuzzle.com.

Other publications include short stories, essays and articles in various national and local publications. Her article on The Great Awakening was included in the Dictionary of Women’s Education published by Greenwood Press.