Tending Roses

I'm reading a great book once again... and thanks to the friend that referred it, I have found out it is a part of a 5 book series - so I'll be reading for a while! I really can't do justice to how beautiful these books are. The story is sweet, the writing sensational and the fact that there is a grandmother's journal involved... very compelling.

Here's an excerpt that should convince you mothers that you want to read this beautiful story:

"Once, a poor hired lady came with a bouquet of roses and wildflowers clasped in her hands. She told me that her children had sneaked into my garden and picked them for her, and that they would be punished. I bade her not to scold the children, for I was proud to give them this gift. She smiled, and thanked me, and told me that, with so many children, she had no time for tending roses.

I did not understand her words until my own children were born. When the first was a babe, I took her outside and let her play in an empty wash barrel so I could have time for tending my roses. I was often cross with her cries while I was at my work. As she grew, and as my second child was born, I understood what the hired lady had told me - that motherhood leaves no time for selfish pleasures. Only time for tending others.

My roses grew wild and died as I busied myself with feeding and diapering, nursery rhymes and sickbeds. I missed those bright blooms that had been mine and felt it unfair that I must leave my hard work there to die. But I did not think of it overmuch. My mind and heart were occupied with the sorrows and joys of motherhood.

The day came, it seemed in no time, when my children were grown and gone, and I again found time to tend the roses. I could labor over them from dawn until dusk with no children to feed, no husband needing meals, and few passersby on the old road. My flowers have come thick and full and beautiful again. From time to time, I see neighbor children come to pick them when I am silent in my house. I close my eyes and listen to their laughter, and think that the best times of my life, the times that passed by me the most quickly, were the times when the roses grew wild."