The Story of a Rose

About two years ago, I bought my daughter Kathy a Betty Boop Rose for her birthday. As she adored roses and loves Betty Boop, it was the perfect present.
We planted it in the back garden of the house we lived in then, and waited hopefully for her to bloom. Alas, she did not. She didn’t like her situation. We moved her to a better spot, but she sulked, refusing to grow or bloom.
Then came a period of emotional and domestic turmoil. We quite forget about Betty, but we remembered to take her with us in a large pot when we moved into temporary accomodation. We needed to move to the cooler air of the mountains for the sake of Kathy’s youngest child,who suffered badly from the oppressive heat and humidity of the lowlands, but there were seemingly interminable delays. Betty was placed in the backyard near the tap so we would remember to water her. She continued to resist all blandishments to bloom, but she did flaunt new foliage. Clearly she just hadn’t liked the old house at all. We were inclined to sympathise with her.
Finally we managed our somewhat chaotic move to a house on the Granite Belt, on the Queensland side of the New South Wales/Queensland border. We remembered Betty, shoving her in the back of my car just before we left. Poor girl, she took it well, but looked a bit lost at the side of the house in her pot until we sortied around the new back yard and discovered good rich soil in which to plant her.
I must confess that by now I had given up all hope. But we placed her in her new situation with a tomato plant, some parsley and a strawberry plant for company. Well, the heavens just opened up as soon as we moved in and it has rained pretty well continuously since. The drought that had forced us all onto very strict water rationing is over - the local dam is overflowing, but with all this rain, water usage hasn’t really changed much.
But how Betty loves it! She has started to grow at last, puts out new leaves, and lo and behold! The other morning we found her very first bloom.
It is as gorgeous as all the photos predicted, a deep and lovely pinky red toning to yellow. Kathy was enchanted - Betty’s first baby is being lovingly cared for and will be pressed to find a home among Kathy’s most precious keepsakes.
You see, this is more than just a rose - Betty’s baby is a symbol of hope, of light coming back into lives that were darkened by sorrow, loss and worry. Betty has survived all this upheaval - we kept her because no matter how unhappy she was, she refused to give in, she kept fighting to survive.
And that’s the story of our beautiful rose.

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