Dad's Roses

My Dad always loved roses.

They were his favourite flowers.

When I was growing up, we always had roses in our garden.

My childhood was premeated by their heady scent.

Red was his favourite colour.

It is also mine, next to purple.

At his funeral we put red roses on his coffin.

It seemed fitting.

And they looked beautiful.

A flash of bright colour against the grey dreariness of the day - and our sorrow.

He died 21 years ago today.

It seems like yesterday.

We had a red rose bush planted at the crematorium after he died.

But they only keep them for ten years so they're not there now.

I don't mind that the roses have gone.

I only ever saw them in bloom in the summer.

I only went a few times, on his birthday.

In January, they were simply stalks with harsh spikes.

Quite appropriate for how I felt, still feel, on those annual pilgrimages to look at the Book of Remembrance.

The chapel was empty today so I was able to be alone with my thoughts.

And my tears.

Loved and remembered always, it says in the book.

Loved and remembered always, it says in my heart.

And in the red roses I left behind.