Rose Miscarriage

With all the warm weather we have been having, the sturdy rose bush by our front door decided to send out another blossom. A tiny rosebud appeared the other day, developing into a deep pink blushing promise of yet another gorgeous flower. I was concerned the moment I saw it. How can it hope to last if the winter weather comes? It is out of sync with time. But I hope with it. I hope for it.

But alas! The night temperature drops and the poor little rosebud does not open. It stays tightly folded, hanging on for dear life against the frigid air. It will not open. It will remain forever a bud, like some miscarriage of the natural order of things. I know these things happen. But I am saddened at the loss, at what will never be. I stand long moments before its shriveled pinkness, sorry to see it cut down before it began.

Like so many women, I have been touched by the sadness of miscarriage. I think of it from time to time, of what might have been. I share this experience with women across time and cultures, a bond that needs no words to forge, a tinge of sorrow that colors our lives in many unnoticed ways, forming us, shaping our response to the hurts of this life. Though my event was many years ago, the effect lingers.

Perhaps that is why I notice such things as tiny rosebuds that never see the light of the sun and stop to appreciate what might have been.