Red Roses

Red roses, beautiful red roses, were a reminder of Charles. Each year for thirty-eight years, he bought a dozen roses, always red, on their anniversary and presented them to her with a flourish. With the roses in her arms, Harriett had felt like a beauty queen, Miss America or maybe Miss Universe. His grin had been worth more than the roses, and when he died, her heart had shattered like porcelain hitting a hard wood floor.

Six years had passed without roses but each anniversary day Harriett had taken a bouquet of roses to Charles’ grave. The permanent vase had been installed on the first anniversary of his death and on the June day when she had married Charles; she filled it with fragrant blossoms.

There were other days when she visited the cemetery – his birthday, holidays, and sometimes because she felt lonely. Memorial Park was a pretty place with vibrant green grass trimmed just so and with flowers everywhere. About then last year she came a week before Christmas with bright poinsettias for the vase only to find a funeral in process a few feet away.

Music from the striped tent carried across the winter grass, the joyful music of Handel’s Messiah and although she felt very sorry for the family, her spirit soared with the music. Handel was a favorite composer and music had always been the medicine that soothed her spirit. Charles never shared her love for classical music; he was more of a Hank Williams guy.

Reading the daily paper at home over lunch for one, Harriett flipped through the obituaries to learn who went home on the wings of such glorious music. Her name had been Celeste; her husband of forty-three years, Harold, was among her survivors.

Weeks later when she took a spring bouquet of daffodils to the cemetery, a tall, lean man stood over the still raw earth of his wife’s grave. He too carried bright yellow flowers and Harriett felt inspired. Her feet crossed the few yards of new grass.

“Hello.” Although her heart pounded like a galloping paint pony, she managed to keep her voice calm. “You have lovely taste in flowers.”

He blinked; she realized that there had been tears in his eyes but he smiled. “My wife loved daffodils. Are those for your husband?”

She nodded. “Yes. Charles adored spring and all the blooming things. He’s been gone six years.”

The weight of her words sobered him.

“Does it get easier in time?”

“No.” That was honest but she saw the hurt in his face, the fading of hope so hurried to explain. “It gets better but not easier, just different. It doesn’t hurt quite as much in time.”

“Thank you.” He extended a hand in greeting. “I’m Harold Christian and this is – was – my dear wife, Celeste.”

“Harriett Waltrip.” His hand felt warm in hers, living and strong. “My late husband Charles Waltrip is buried here.”

He strode across to gaze at Charles’ stone and nodded.

“He must have been a fine man. Was he ill?”

The old grief caught her hard but she shook her head.

“Oh, no, he wasn’t sick a day in his life. It was a car accident. Your wife?”

“Cancer.” His voice was very low. “I know this may sound strange but may I buy you a cup of coffee? You seem to understand just how I feel and I’d like to talk with you a little while longer.”

“ Coffee would be nice.”

Talking to Harold over a cup of coffee at the local Denny’s Restaurant was nice; she enjoyed it, the intimacy of sitting with a man in a cozy booth. The conversation flowed without the hesitancy she remembered from dating and by the time she left the restaurant, they had made a date to have dinner and go to the local symphony.

“You’re going on a date?” Her daughter’s reaction was no surprise; Mandy had been a Daddy’s girl from the moment she opened her big blue eyes. “I can’t believe it.”

“It’s just a date, honey. Your father’s been gone for years, now.”

“But Mama, I don’t see how you can.”

“Hush.” Harriett had said. “I don’t expect you to understand.”

Harold did, however. He understood the immediate grief, the tangle of emotions that faded into a dull ache. Harold knew how feelings graduated into mixed emotions that combined guilt with sorrow. He had felt the first soaring joy after his loss and then the grief that all but drowned it that he could feel happy without Celeste. She knew these things too.

In the spring, Harold brought her deep purple iris, not daffodils and they picnicked at the park, eating fried chicken and drinking champagne from plastic cups. On the Fourth of July, they watched the fireworks light up the sky above the river.

That August they went away for a weekend to a little German community known for its’ many wineries and on Labor Day, at a family reunion, she told her children that she and Harold would be married.

Mandy’s stunned look confirmed that the kids needed time to assimilate and so the wedding date had been set for spring, in April just after Easter.

The ring that Harold gave her was lovely; a single diamond on a platinum band that sparkled in the sunlight. Decades after her first wedding, Harriett planned another, a simple family event that would celebrate her new love and her triumph over grief.

On that April morning, she donned the new white linen suit with the blouse frilled with lace. Her hair had been styled at the salon the day before and Mandy helped her with make-up. Although the new shoes pinched her toes, Harriett didn’t care and as she walked across the grass to where Harold waited, she felt a smile stretch her face.

The new grass beneath her feet was green and birds sang from the trees. She carried a bouquet of red roses in her arms, her bridal bouquet trimmed with baby’s breath and accented with a few bright yellow daffodils. The same red roses caught the sunlight from Charles’ vase and from Celeste’s grave. Although Mandy had questioned being married in the cemetery, she and Harold had agreed there was no better place. This was where they met and this place included their first spouses, somehow mingling past and future.

Red roses reminded her of love past, present, and future as Pastor Michael pronounced them man and wife till death do us part.