Roses and The Myth of Happily Ever After

The first time I received a dozen red roses was for my 18th birthday, back when I was in college. Ordinarily this would have been thrilling and flattering - but unfortunately they came from my best friend's boyfriend. So I was confused, she was angry and HE was in the doghouse. He should have sent daisies.

Years later, my sister was devastated the week her current boyfriend sent her a yellow rose instead of the usual red one. The next week he sent a pink one. Yellow roses signify jealousy and a decrease of love. The pink rose offered only friendhip. She declined.

Roses have always spoken to us of love, the state of being in love, or the decline of love. But love and romance don't always equate. Love can be family love, the warmth of good friendship or any number of other good things. Even loving memory. I can remember when my grandfather died. I was devastated, but my mother took me to the nursery and had me pick out a rose bush to plant in our yard in loving memory. I picked 'Mr. Lincoln', because to my 4-year old eyes my grandfather had somewhat resembled that august President. As I tended it with my little watering can, I would think of him, and my sadness faded. Forty-six years later 'Mr.Lincoln' still reminds me of my grandfather.

If cut roses send messages about love, and a plant can be a memorial to love then what about a whole garden of roses?

I remember choosing the high school I attended just because of their graduation was a garden ceremony. The graduates wore long white dresses and processed under a long, white, rose-covered pergola that ran by a pond complete with swans. We each carried a bouquet of roses to match the ones covering our path. It was the most romantic graduation my teenage mind could conceive of. Naturally the year I graduated the school moved to more modern quarters. They did get some sod laid the day before the ceremony, but I'm afraid processing across an asphalt parking lot just didn't have the same panache. And I pricked my finger on my bouquet of roses and ruined my long white dress. That's life, not fairy tale romance!

Just what was so romantic about those roses?? It seems like most of the images we conjure up when we say "Romance" involve them. The little rose-covered cottage. Lovers under a rose arbor. Lovers taking a stroll always go to the rose garden, and then he stops and plucks a perfect bloom as a symbol of his undying love. They promise to try to make life a bed of roses for each other and don't even remember about the thorns.

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