God gave us memory so that we might have roses in December.
James M. Barrie
It’s not December yet, but I had a lovely surprise this weekend when I happened to look up at the top spray of our prolific, $1.99 rose bush. The rest of the bush is even losing its leaves, but among the branches and thorns is one beautiful reminder of summer.
It’s also a beautiful flower to put here in memory of the victims of September 11th. We have not forgotten.
“What a lovely thing a rose is!… Our highest assurance of Providence seems to me to rest in the flowers. All other things, our powers, our desires, our food are all really necessary for our existence in the first instance. But this rose is an extra. Its smell and color are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it. It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say again that we have much to hope from the flowers.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Naval Treaty
“I feel as if I had opened a book and found roses of yesterday sweet and fragrant, between its leaves.”
― L. M. Montgomery, Anne of the Island
This, that and the other thing 