My husband died over a year ago, and the date of his burial is about a month away. I’ve had to go back to work after being out of the workforce since 2016, but thankfully, only part-time. That has allowed me the leeway to make some plans.

My husband loved roses. He used to tell me that his dream job, after his death, would be to plant roses in heaven. We lived in a variety of places together. He spent the majority of his life in Arizona. I was an Ohio girl who had lived the bulk of my adult life in South Carolina.  Eventually, Ron and I met and corresponded long-distance. He lived in Arizona, and I lived in South Carolina. He flew out to join the celebration for a milestone birthday and brought with him an original painting of his as a gift to me. It was unframed. He told me if I wanted the frame, I would have to fly to Arizona to collect it. In time, I did just that. We corresponded for several years, during which I learned much about the man, his character, his faith, and his passion for roses.

Over the years, Ron told me quite a few times, that his idea of a dream job would be to be allowed to plant roses in heaven. Since his death, there have been two massive excavations of our yard. A water line burst and backed up into our basement. Our yard needed to be landscaped to slope down, away from our house. An overgrown, weedy garden in the back needed to be bulldozed and have grass seed put there.  Now I have a blank canvas to paint!

I get to play gardener for a while. I’m not the expert my husband was, but I have some imagination. The tall wooden fence behind our patio blocks our backyard from view. It is going to be cut in a sloping curve and painted, then the backyard will be visible. In the center of the the very back of the yard, I want to plant a white Dogwood tree.

There was a beautiful one in front of my parents’ home, the home where I grew up.  I want a Dogwood behind Ronnie’s and my home.   But we have to have Roses!

I want some comfortable places to sit and this is the perfect place for adding roses. I found a picture I liked that I include here:

I think I would eventually like two of these in the back of our yard, mirror images of each other, on either side of the Dogwood.  But instead of the pink roses, I want red roses.  My favorite place for roses is Jackson Perkins, and they have beautiful red climbing roses.  They are called Don Juan climbing roses, or, if you read Lord Byron — Don Jew-an roses.   They will look beautiful covering those lovely arches.  These are the ones for me!

I love and miss Ronnie very much.   I think he would have enjoyed these choices, and I like to think that perhaps, God will allow him a glimpse and that Ron will smile down from heaven.   Bless him for making the call to move us to Ohio.  It is our last house.   I mean to make our house and yard one that he would have enjoyed!  Ron was an amazing gardener.   I hope that I  can create a little paradise in the yard of our last home.