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Rose Garden
When you’re a kid you believe anything your told. It was summer time, school was out and my family spent lots of time together, not only my family but every family in my neighborhood. When our parents were done working for the day it was family time. Not because Dr. Phil said it was the right thing to do but because Andy Griffin did. Even though Opie didn’t have a mama, he didn’t seem to mind much because he had the best daddy ever, aside from mine that is. I guess you could say that we were all like the Leave it to Beaver family. I had one sister and two brothers and they were all older than me. Being the baby had some advantages; I was of course a daddy’s baby.
Thursday, June12, 1980, my brother, Kevin and I had been attending vacation Bible school at my neighbors church. It only lasted four days but Ms.Sally made sure that we went with her and her kids Tim and Tonya every year. This being Thursday it was our last night there. We could hardly wait to show off the things we had made while learning about our savior. I rushed inside the house eager to show mama the bee hive I had made out of the leggs egg she had given me from her panty hose. Excited and boisterous we rounded the corner into the living room “SHHH SHHH HUSH!” I heard in a voice I had never ever heard come out my mama’s mouth. Immediately I knew something was wrong and sat down very quietly on the arm of the sofa.
Still grasping my bee hive I heard my daddy’s voice on the scanner. He was giving an address, but something wasn’t right, the volume was as loud as it would go and daddy’s voice was strained like he could barely speak. I had heard my daddy’s voice on that scanner for as long as I could remember of my whole seven years of age, and that was long enough to know something was wrong. “Get my bedroom shoes!” mama yelled “why mama? What’s wrong?” me and Kevin both ask at the same time. “Just get my bedroom shoes and hurry! Get them now!” mama yelled again. I didn’t yet know what but I did know something was bad wrong because neither my mama nor my daddy ever raised there voice at us or in front of us children. “Pray Sue Ann! Pray, pray out loud” mama begged as if my sister’s prayers would be instantly answered if she’d only pray out loud.
Mama rushed us in the car and across the road back to the safe care of Ms.Sally. Never explaining what was going on after speaking to Ms. Sally mama said, “I love yall” and rushed off with my older sister still praying out loud as she was told to do. With my stomach feeling sick now, Ms. Sally took Kevin and me inside to sit in the formal living room and play with Tim and Tonya. She assured us that everything would be okay, that it was nothing bad. Because of Ms. Sally not letting us sit in the room with her and Mr. Billy I was sure she was explaining to him something that I didn’t know.
After what seemed like forever, the phone rang. I knew it had to be my mama, so I rushed to the phone and there stood Ms.Sally quietly holding the phone and listening. I waited impatiently staring at the long cord curled around our feet hanging from her ear. Fretful of what she might say I could feel the pain starting to set in. “ok I’ll see you in a few minutes bye bye,” she said, as the cord drug closer to the wall. “Go get Kevin and yall come here, I need to tell yall something,” she said. I ran and got Kevin and hurried back to the kitchen where Ms.Sally was waiting on us. It seemed as though Kevin had not sensed the same things I had from mama or the tiredness in my daddy’s voice over the scanner.
She sat each of us on the counter top side by side in the kitchen. This was the first time I remember a grown up looking me in the eye. “You know how people have flower gardens?,” she started to explain. “Every day they go to the garden and pick the prettiest flowers they see, they take them inside and keep them.” Her voice started cracking and her lip quivered as she tried to smile. “Well God has a rose garden and we are all his roses. Every day he comes and picks the prettiest roses and takes them to heaven to live with him. Today he came and he picked your daddy as his prettiest rose and took him back to heaven to live with him.” Finally one single tear ran down her face as she hugged us both and assured us that in time everything would be okay.
I don’t remember anything after my feet hit the floor when she lifted me off the counter. I don’t remember going home from her house. I don’t remember who was there. I don’t remember anything more than the sadness, pain, and anger that had set in forever. I do remember everyone saying that time heals all wounds and that it would all get better. “Who said this? What were they thinking? Why did they all lie to me, and most of all had they ever lost there daddy?” These are all questions that I have still to this day. It hurts just the same as it did the day I sat by my daddy’s flower covered casket, listening to some man playing a very sad sound on a very funny looking horn. Now thirty years later, I know he was playing Taps and it gives me chills every time I hear it played. I still don’t know how long it takes for time to heal all wounds or why those flowers on the casket were not pretty enough for God.
Rhonda Powell
The baby of His 4 Children
June 12, 2010
