The Tale Of Fifty Roses
Planted In The Heart Of A Family

A GIFT OF FIFTY ROSES

We are here now to celebrate two people, two hearts, two beautiful roses joined in Faith, Love and Spirit. Fifty years ago today my parents, Ralph and Margie, joined their hands and their lives together. Their carriage passes this same way today, carrying with it now a banquet of life, having given birth, love, and shelter to a family of peace loving people. Their's is a family of four children, each of whom has looked for the good in the world and tried to fan it's flames high, as each one's heart so directed them, and even now, continues to direct them.

I include my brother, Jim, here today, as I try to include him continuously in my life. I remember once when I was on a basketball court with him, maybe I was 13 or 14, he was four years older, and there was a younger boy we didn't know. We were all shooting around, grabbing rebounds, having fun, when Jim pulled me aside and chastised me for constantly denying the younger child the ball. He asked me what right I had to hog the ball just because I was older, bigger and stronger. I recognized what he said to be true, and I learned a lesson about what treating people equally meant. In this way Jim reflected good parenting, because he showed what a good heart he had, and I will always remember Jim for his exceptional heart! In Jim's name, and in Jim's memory, I brought you a dozen red roses yesterday.

This past spring floods devastated the beautiful city of Grand Forks, washing some of it's sickest and frailest members upon the shores of outlying towns like Valley City. When calls of desperate help for volunteers went out from hospitals and nursing homes inundated with these fragile uprooted souls, my sister, Mick, her self in very fragile health, stepped forward and became a daily fountain of life and light to these elderly people. This is a very special gift she has, to be able to relate to all people as equals, as special unique souls who need love, need to be touched, and need to be heard. This gift is a reflection of both a good heart and of parents who nurtured that heart. I remember the first time I saw this in Mick, it was one spring in South Dakota, all of us were living on my uncle Jerrie's 500 acre organic farm, including my wonderful grandfather, Joe Lange, Mick was pregnant with Jeramiah and her life was in horrible turmoil. Everyday she went out of her way to make our 80 something grandpa feel special, feel loved, and feel honored, and it was beautiful to see, and he treasured it! In Mick's name I brought you a dozen beautiful roses yesterday, because the heart of this family is beautiful.

Certainly as a family we have had our joys and our sorrows. These are inevitable in life. It is how one responds that is important. As a nurse, my sister Jan wanted so much to be of help to Jim in his battle with cancer and yet circumstances never quite allowed it. Her response has been to go into hospice nursing; to be there over and over as people face their mortality, come to grips with their souls, say good by to their loved ones and weep openly as they are torn on the thorns of life's roses This response by Jan is a testament to a heart of true gold. . Life tarnishes us all, and we all have to polish ourselves up and go on, there is strong fortitude in this and it comes from good parenting. It is in Jan's name I brought you a dozen roses yesterday so you can smell, taste and cherish the beauty of life.

I remember 14 years ago, the last time I was looking for work, one week I was blessed with two job offers, one fairly good paying, and one minimum wage job. Being true to myself, I chose the later, partially because of physical considerations and partially because I wanted the experience of working with mentally retarded delinquent kids. I've always had a horrible tendency to do whatever I wanted to, economics be damned! I have my own theories about the need for humanity to find another path to travel, but regardless, I soon found myself face to face, barely able to communicate with some very unique and troubled children, and until I got reigned in and eventually fired, I loved it. Developmentally disabled kids still have functioning brains, even if damaged, and each day I would try to find a new way to communicate with someone and each day I would get myself deeper in trouble. You see, this was suppose to be a strictly structured, behavior modification type home with every child on multiple behavior modification programs the staff oversaw. Reality was far, far from this with very few of the hundreds of programs actually being followed. All of this made the job a difficult place for me to navigate, and I found myself doing what I do best, which is relating to people one on one, and pulling the best out of them. (Did I mention we weren't suppose to work with the kids one on one).

There was a young woman at the children's home named Teresa who had a bad habit of going off on wild tantrums. These would cause the staff to quickly restrain her and haul her off, kicking and screaming, to the dark, smelly and literally piss infested time out closet where she would be left until she calmed down. Over the course of a few weeks I got to know Teresa by interacting with her one on one. Teresa liked coloring so I would sit and color with her, generally she was 17 going on 5. When she colored she wouldn't stay in the lines, etc. Her words were hard to understand and badly garbled. When Teresa tried to communicate with someone she could get frustrated quickly because people wouldn't understand her, which made her more frustrated and harder to understand. At about this time she was likely to go off on one of her tantrums. What I found was that when she was beginning to get agitated and about to go off, if I started to talk real slowly and calmly, while I got her to start coloring, I could get her to calm down. I would get Teresa to start coloring inside the lines, praising her little efforts until they became big efforts, soon her breathing would slow down and her words would be much more understandable.
Suddenly instead of being 17, going on five, about to act like a two year old, her language and coloring skills would reflect more of a seven year old. I would then slowly pull out of her space leaving her happily coloring. (Did I mention we weren't suppose to work one on one with the kids in this way and that pretty soon I got the hatchet?) Well, at any rate, I've always wondered what did happen to Teresa, because underneath it all I sensed she had a good heart. It is in her name, and in my name, and particularly in the name of all the many people who's lives the two of your hearts have been able to touch through the hearts of your children, that I brought you a dozen roses yesterday. Thank you so much for setting such a fine example and may I propose a toast to these two beautiful hearts of yours, each one a special rose, that you have joined together and shared with us through these fifty years of marriage.

by Gary Lange

The history of this tale is itself a part of this story. On the Friday before the big Saturday tado, I was helping my friend Peg get ready for an open house, open studio art show she was partaking in, in Boulder, CO. A friend of Peg's, Jane, called and asked if she would be interested in a special on roses from a wholesale flower shop featuring two dozen for six dollars.
Peg loves flowers at her openings and of course jumped on it. Knowing my folks celebration was the next day, Peg asked if I would be interested in getting some for my folks, thinking quickly, I ordered not two, but four dozen and privately thanked my brother Jim for helping me find such a nice affordable gift to honor my folks.
When Jane came with the roses, the special had grown from four dozen to an even fifty, how convenient, I thought.

I don't know if bringing fifty roses home to my parents, uncut, and not in a vase, the night before their fiftieth wedding anniversary, was truly a gift. Dad was gone to the airport to pick up Mick, and mom was trying to fix supper for the four of us, when I showed up at the door with these two huge bundles of roses crying out for immediate care, but roses are roses and a
woman who loves roses, loves roses, and my mom loves roses. To her they became a dozen roses from each of her children, and we had fun cutting and placing them just so in the two largest vases she had. Supper, however, was left up to me to prepare! Later that night, while watching Mother Teresa's funeral on TV, I found myself with writer's block, incapable of forming any thoughts to say at my folks 50th anniversary celebration the next day, and feeling like I was running out of time. I must have said a prayer to Mother Teresa,
(have I already made her a saint,) because soon after, this story of fifty roses began flowing out of me. I think it is one Mother Teresa would enjoy, where, in a troubled world, what we do from the heart becomes the most important thing in our lives.

Gary Lange © copyright