The End of the Roses

It’s Tuesday. Thank you Two Writing Teachers.

 

There is a loop I walk on summer days at the beach. It’s a route  I’ve taken several days a week for the last thirty four summers.

My walk takes me through neighborhoods, along a stretch of marsh that is dotted with osprey nests and cattails, and past small coves and tangles of raspberry brambles growing wild.

And each summer, when I take this walk for the first time in the season, I marvel at what remains the same and what has changed.

My walk takes me past a beautiful clapboard home, painted white, that faces the Sound. I’ve never known who lives there, but I imagine they are city dwellers who escape to the Connecticut coast for the summer. The gardens around this house are simple- hydrangeas mostly and a lawn that stretches from the road around the house to the rocky edge of the water.

There is a simple white rail fence on the road side of the property where for many years lush pink climbing rose bushes lined and leaned against that fence. And every time I walk past, I imagine the owner watering, pruning, feeding and training these gorgeous bushes. I imagine her cutting a few to take indoors. Year in and year out, I see the roses and take in the faint scent in the air as I walked by the rose fences.  A few summers ago I noticed some were gone. They were not replaced. This year only one remains. It’s spindly with almost no blooms. Not long for this world I imagine.

The pea gravel driveway in front of the white clapboard house is crowded now with dumpsters and construction equipment and pick up trucks. New owners I imagine. I imagine whoever tended the roses is gone now. I imagine the last rose bush will be gone soon too. I imagine the new owners aren’t rose people.