My day of compassion began last night. My parents live next door to me. We have beautiful Jackson Perkins pink hedge roses that separate the two houses. As we pruned them this spring, we discussed how horrible they looked. We also talked about how much work they are to take care of. We even touched on the suggestion of taking them out. As spring and summer have progressed, the roses still don’t look much better. The leaf mold hasn’t disappeared although they have been sprayed with some kind of toxic liquid.
My dad came to my door last night and said “I think we need to talk.” When ever I hear those words I know that serious business is in the air. “Your mom told me that I better come over here and talk to you,” he said. “I was wondering how hard it would be to take those roses out. So I pulled four of them out with the truck. It wasn’t bad at all.”
Stunned, I found myself speechless. When did we decide to take them out?, I thought. My dad found himself stumbling for solutions to this problem. “I could buy 4 new plants and put those in. Maybe we could put in a fence. Well we could dig the dirt down and put in rocks. I don’t think I’ll take any more out for now.”
I found myself trying to console him by coming up with solutions to this new current problem. Finally, I told him that I couldn’t pull out any plants until the weekend.
Compassion and understanding is something I’ve been really working hard on as my parents have aged. My 76 year old diabetic mother and 86 year old, 3 time heart attack, father are giving me a run for my money on some days. I can remember as a young girl visiting my precious grandma in the nursing home. She was 70 and had no idea who my mom, her daughter, or I was. It was sad stuff. So…I consider myself pretty lucky these days.
Today was cake in comparison to yesterday; I turned the air conditioner down extra low, didn’t kill any bugs, tried to be thoughtful and didn’t yell at the lady driving slow in front of me. But what the heck am I going to do about the roses?
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