Because of the Boy With the Yellow Roses
“That which God said to the rose, and caused it to laugh in full-blown beauty,
He said to my heart, and made it a hundred times more beautiful.”
―Rumi
I’ve been nervous to begin again after the summer’s writing hiatus, a practice I’ve adopted since beginning this blog. Each year when September rolls around, I start to panic. Thoughts such as “Maybe no one will notice if I start in October instead” and “It could very well be that I have nothing left to say, and that’s okay. Is that okay? It doesn’t feel okay” fill my mind. The anxious “Will I? Won’t I? How could I not?” dance has become a laughably familiar routine, so I’ve decided to just lean into it. This summer has been full of good things: reuniting with old friends, traveling to new places, spending time in forests and lakes with family, celebrating weddings and birthdays, and consuming a good deal of homemade granola. There have been many moments over the past two months in which I have tasted and touched, smelled and seen the goodness of God (Granola! Sun-warmed pine! Morning songbirds! Strawberry Champagne Cake!). But the one image that came to mind today when wondering “Where shall I begin?” involves a perspiring teenage boy, six different birthday parties happening at once, and a single rose.
Drew and I were walking one evening at our local park, named “Les Gove” after a man who apparently offered a great deal to our community. The naggingly unforgettable name of this park (neither “Les Grove” nor “Let’s Go”) has become part of our daily vocabulary. Whenever we want to go to this park we say, “Les’ Gove!” (the “ve” is whispered). On that particular evening in early August, we couldn’t help but notice that no fewer than six congregations of 20+ people were celebrating birthdays at the same time—and to make it even better each party had brought their own giant tent, portable grills, and professional speaker system with competing levels of music blaring. As we walked in laps around the park, the music from one party would fade as the urgent beat of another set of ‘background music’ would rise to the fore. Honestly, it was as if all of the Disney parks with their varying theme music had been brought into one big roundup and we were there either to feast or be feasted upon by the auditory cacophony. Although we had not anticipated that every person who has ever had a birthday would be celebrating that night, Drew and I marched on in giddy bewilderment. “Gotta get those steps in,” I’ve been saying ever since I learned the phrase.
In the midst of the merry maelstrom, I noticed a toddler who had wandered away from her party, carrying a drooping yellow long-stemmed rose that was as tall as she was. She looked up wide-eyed into the sunset-kissed treetops towering over her, dancing in a gentle breeze. I smiled at her and kept walking, wondering where she’d received her rose. And then, in the distance, I saw him: a teenage boy in a dirty t-shirt and blue jeans, wandering across the grass. He seemed to be a party of one—a factor especially noticeable that evening—and in his hand he carried a bouquet of yellow roses.
Earlier that day, Drew and I had attended a birthday party of our own thank you very much and had been given one of the beautiful floral centerpieces as a take home gift. I was thrilled, and upon receiving it handed the vase and flowers to Drew for safekeeping because I was helping to clean. My beautiful prize never made it home—a fact for which Drew had apologized multiple times, though I was still feeling a bit catty about it. So imagine the longing that filled me hours later upon beholding a clutch of yellow roses from a distance at the park.
“God,” I began to pray silently, “I’d really like a rose. I know that’s kind of silly, but they’re so beautiful and I just want one.” As Drew and I kept walking, I watched from the corner of my eye as the boy with the roses began to walk towards us with greater intentionality. I felt so embarrassed at even getting my hopes up that I decided to act like a true Pacific Northwesterner and kept my gaze directly before me, acting like there wasn’t another human in sight. Eventually, his path intersected with ours but even then I did not look up until his arm extended towards me, rose in hand, a smile illuminating his face as perspiration beaded upon the traces of a downy mustache on his upper lip. “Oh, thank you!” I said with a surprised “Who, me?” sort of delight, as if this wasn’t the one thing I had been wanting since I first saw those roses. I ask you: how many teenage boys walking around a park giving out roses to strangers do you know? As we walked our final lap I realized that both of my previously empty hands were full—one hand was holding Drew’s, while the other held tightly to my creamy yellow long stemmed rose like an answered prayer.
When Drew and I arrived home, I promptly put the rose in a glass Pepsi bottle I saved from one of the last days I spent with my Grandma, who loved roses. It made me glad to take the bottle out again—to remember her, to remember God’s goodness in answering my child-like request in real time, to remember how sacred it is when strangers teach you something about the heart of God. I confess I do not know how to reconcile the God of Yellow Roses with the pain and suffering I see around me, but maybe that isn’t my job—at least not for today. There is a time to pick up that burden, and a time to lay it down. Sometimes that burden will be heavy as grief; sometimes, light as roses.
Someone asked me recently why I am still a Christian, and almost daily I find a new answer to the question. Today, it is “Because of the boy with the yellow roses.”
And maybe, beloved, that is enough.