A rose is a rose is a rose

This afternoon I went to the best nursery I could think of (where I also happen to have a $75 gift card) in search of Angel Face. It's a beautiful, ruffled, lavender rose with the most perfect name I can think of for a rose intended to go in my backyard.

I learned about it from a fellow mother in mourning who has it growing in her garden. Since I often think of her little boy and mine together - friends in heaven just as their mommies are on earth - it felt important for me to have it too.

Whatever gives you comfort, right? Right.

So I headed off in search of the rose with my Mom and Dad in tow.

It's a good nursery indeed - they had hundreds of beautiful roses - but Angel Face eluded me. Maybe it's not sold in Canada, or maybe it's rare and sells out fast. Whatever the case, it wasn't there.

But I didn't leave empty handed. I found New Dawn, a prolific climber with soft pink blooms that will light up the often dark and certainly dreary corner of the yard where I intend to plant it.

"New Dawn" seemed fitting. I don't know where my life is headed, but I know that I'm in a new phase - one without Thomas. One riddled with fears, sorrow, grief and regret, but still not without gentle beauty. Just like the delicately painted blossoms of my new rose.

And Thomas, well he's in a new phase too. We were all born into a new life when his ended so suddenly almost 14 months ago.

So New Dawn felt right and good. Poignant and sweet, sad and joyful.

My Dad helped me pick out a healthy specimen (since I've never planted a rose and don't have a clue how to tell a good one from one knocking on death's door) and I tucked it in the corner of the as yet unplanted vegetable garden to await transplant to its permanent home, hopefully in a week or so.

I was standing on the deck after dinner tonight, watching the tiny snippits of other lives through their open windows, when I looked at my rose. I could just see its faint outline in the glow of a nearby solar light.

I know it sounds corny, but my heart kind of swelled. My Dad picked it out with me, my Mom was so touched by its fitting name, and it's more life I can bring into my little world to nurture and tend.

It's just a rose. But it's the right rose.

And right is very, very, very good for me.