The Tale of A Rose

When I learned we were due to have a Flower Communion at my church (a traditional Unitarian Ceremony), one thing I immediately thought was “I must take a rose in”.

I have a rather lovely rose bush growing in my back garden. It’s a “Forever Friends” rose, which is apt, since it was given to me as a moving-in gift by one of my best friends, J.

J and I have been friends since we were 14. We went to the same secondary school, and found ourselves sitting next to each other in GCSE Biology class. This was lucky, because the teacher was not especially concerned about arriving on time to his classes, and we soon got to talking to each other. It’s one of my few friendships – well, actually the only one – where one of the first bonding moments occurred over a shared refusal to dissect a lamb heart. (Her due to lifelong vegetarianism, me due to a lifelong unfortunate tendency to faint at the sight of blood.)

Following our shared dissection refusal, our lives took similar paths, as we moved to a different school to do our A-levels, went to the same university (Durham), and ended up living not far from each other. Our friendship has held steady through life’s rocky moments, and there have been some very rocky moments, but I am now the godson to her two adorable boys, who like to come around and rearrange my house for me every now and then. I particularly wanted the flower I would take to the Flower Communion to be a rose from the rose bush she had given me.

I did, however, face a problem. Since I had deadheaded it (you know you are at a certain point in life when the word “deadhead” enters your vocabulary), the rose bush, for reasons best known to itself, had decided to grow all ten of its flowers on a single stalk, as you can see. I really didn’t want to cut all of the roses off, but they had very short stalks.

I left deciding about it late, until the morning of the Flower Communion, itself, then went out with the secateurs to take a look. I took a closer look at the bush, and smiled.

As if it had read my mind, there, tucked away behind the flower stalk, the rose bush had grown a single perfect pink rose.

I clipped the rose carefully, tucked it into a bag, and carried it to church.

A Bit of a Stopper

So, I recently wrote my will, which is perhaps an odd thing to do at 33. Until now, I never needed one, as I never had anything to leave. Then someone pointed out to me that if I met an untimely end, the mortgage insurance would cover paying off my mortgage, and I would have a certain amount to leave behind. I like things to be neat and tidy, so I found a lawyer through Amnesty International's "Make a Will Week". This happens in March each year. Amnesty arrange for a free will-writing service, in the hope that people who use it might be inspired to leave a small legacy behind (which I have).

My will is pretty simple, mostly along the lines of "leave money to godchildren, jewellery to best friends, dive gear to dive shop, some gifts to charity, and my family and brother get the rest". The actual writing involves a certain amount of depressing speculation, it being a lawyer's job to point out things like "If your parents die, do you want your brother to get the lot? What about if he dies before you?". It is best not to flippantly reply "By the point this becomes an issue, I won't care, I'll be dead".

I don't always see death the way other people do. Having Asperger's syndrome, albeit very mild, means there's a lot of social detail you tend to miss. I've been called a Vulcan in the past for holding views such as my failure to understand why people eat cake and then complain it's making them fat. Either eat the cake and enjoy it, or don't eat the cake and save the calories, but eating the cake and then complaining about it seems to me to be pointless. For me, the inevitability of death is something I view much in the category of paying tax and getting rained on in autumn; it just happens. It just is. Why not talk about it, when it will happen to everyone? I don't get the urge to avoid talking about death, but then I also don't get why people don't provide for their old age. You know you'll get old, you've seen other people age and need extra support, so why don't you prepare for when it will happen to you? I plain don't get people, sometimes.

Nevertheless, it was quite a stopper to be holding in my hands the draft will. Staring at a piece of paper heading "The Last Will Of..." with your name below it is hard to process. This is a document whose sole purpose to exist is to deal with the fact that, one day, I won't. There will be no more me. That's how things are, but actually seeing concrete proof of it... Still, I'm glad I have the will. It does give you peace of mind, in the end.

I think I'll go and eat some cake now. Without complaining about it.

Unexpected Guest

So, I was clearing out the garden today...

Garden may be overstating it somewhat. I have a back yard which was overgrown with ivy, and a bit at the front which is largely inhabited by a Triffid. It's actually a Yucca Plant, but no-one calls it that. It is so big that before buying my flat, I actually asked the estate agent to confirm that I would own the front garden, so that Triffid-removal could take place unimpeded. Its sole advantage is that it's impossible for people to miss my flat when visiting for the first time: "Look for the Triffid on the left" always seems to work.

Having always lived in shared houses with little in the way of gardens, I know slightly less than naff-all about gardening. Fortunately, help was on hand in the form of the Best Friend, the Best Friend's Husband, and the Best Friend's Adorable Cute Baby. The latter was no use at all at gardening, but extremely good at being cute and entertaining. (Although he has developed the ability to roll off things, rather than staying put, which adds to that feeling of slight worry I always feel when encountering a small cute child - along the lines of "Please don't injure yourself if I turn my eyes away for a millisecond".)

They arrived with secateurs, a couple of buckets, and a fork, and attacked the overgrown ivy and honeysuckle with a will. I was using the fork to rake away chopped-up ivy and dead leaves from one of the beds at the back, when I saw something which, at first, looked like a dried-up pine cone. Then I realised it was breathing!

We had inadvertantly uncovered a hibernating hedgehog in the back garden. I had no idea the little chap was there. I'm rather glad we found him (or her) before we could start digging around, as he was so well-buried, serious injury could have occurred. I quickly inspected the little fellow to ensure I hadn't clipped him with the fork, then piled all the dead leaves back on, and labelled them for good measure.

I'll be keeping an eye on the little fellow, and rather hope that I might get a sighting when he finally decides to rejoin us.