The Lesson of The Rose

This afternoon, Eliza gave me a rose.  She'd picked it from the bushes between our driveway and our neighbors' driveway.  She handed it to me and I immediately wondered how I would put it in a vase, as she always wants me to do, since there was practically no stem left.  She must have sensed my thought process because she immediately told me that she'd removed the stem so that I wouldn't have any "pokey things."

Before I managed to pull out the smallest bud vase we have and fill it to the brim with water in an effort to keep this pretty pink rose alive, even if on life support, Eliza got back to work.  When I spotted her next, she was sitting on a stool at the bar, pulling petals off of the rose, one by one, and leaving them scattered on the counter.  She'd pulled off about 20 when I saw her and she handed me the now tiny flower.

Tonight Ben and I watched the movie "Moms' Night Out" after the kids went to bed.  It was a great movie - hilarious and heartwarming.  After watching the movie, I thought some more about this little rose.

I thought about how life is full of surprises.  How sometimes the blessings we receive aren't perfect, in our opinions.  Sometimes they aren't packaged the way we want them to be, yet they are still blessings.  And when we think we have a blessing pegged, sometimes the blessing itself surprises us.

When Eliza handed me the flower, I was a little sad that she'd left off so much of the stem.  Then I was saddened even more that she removed half of the petals.  But removing the stem was her way of trying to be helpful.  And I ended up loving the petals sitting on the counter.  I left them there for several hours, knowing she would be sad to see them dumped in the trash.  And every so often when I was in the kitchen this afternoon I would get a whiff of rose from that pile of petals.  It smelled lovely.  It made me glad that she'd pulled them off of the flower, giving me the blessing of a lovely scent, in addition to the pretty little flower in the tiny vase.

Thank you for the flower, and for teaching me such an important lesson, Eliza.

This blog post also provides a wonderful perspective on finding blessings and having gratitude.