This is my niece Rosalie. I was six years old when she was born, the first child of my older sister, Velma. So we are close like sisters. She loved my mother and came to stay at our house as often as she could.
As adults, we both followed our own paths and had families, but always, always kept up with each other. I knew where there was a bedroom and a kitchen table when I went back "home" to visit family from one of the many states I lived in.
When Rocky got sick a few years back, Rosalie and her husband, Leslie, who live in Ohio, came a couple times a year to help us out. She and her daughter, Annette, came to visit and help last April less than a month before Rocky died. Then she and Leslie came again for Rocky's memorial service in May.
Last Friday they arrived again to visit and help me in my flower beds. They more than helped. They did most of the work, not only in the garden but some odd jobs in the house, and together we found time to cook. It was delightful to be with one of my family in two of our favorite places, the garden and the kitchen.
Here's the words that came to me when they left to go home this morning.
He must have had a rich family--rich in living, that is,
We are aging now, but rich in memory,
Rosalie has come to help me with my garden,
and we pat the coneflowers into the earth
and recall our child labors from the past,
We pull out weeds and speak of losses we've had,
into the woods to transform,
And on the knees of our Levi's
we kneel and hope and plan,
And wear out our garden loving genes.
Mimi Rockwell
April 20, 2011
Mimi and Rosalie taking a break from weeding.
