JULY 29, 2020 – He died long before our time, but my sisters and I knew very well, people who knew him very well. He was “George B. Holman,” our maternal great-grandfather. His entrepreneurial sweat and equity were in Rutherford, New Jersey, but his rest and recreation were in Lyme, Connecticut.
Among his hobbies: gardening and beyond—fruit trees. But his fondest plant, we were told, was the rose bush.
Much remains of the man’s legacy, but yesterday one of my sisters and I uncovered our great-grandfather’s last surviving rose bush. It stands higher than I and spreads far wider than six of me. Its thorny stalks are as tenacious as the character of the man whose tastes matched his abilities.
Decades ago, by bird or wind, grape seeds landed where rose bush had reigned for years. The trophy plant succumbed to a massive tangle of grape vines, reaching ever outward and upward. Several shoots climbed the height of an adjacent cedar standing tall but no longer standing guard.
Yesterday, my sister and I strolled the grounds. Neither of us lands here often. On none of our brief visits in recent years had we wandered close to the mound of grape vines and cedar under siege. As we walked in wilting midday sun, we sought the shade of one of our great-grandfather’s pear trees, then another. This progression led us to the corner of his Eden where now the vines, long forgotten by an attendant’s shears, were in full but quiet riot.
I innocently grasped and tugged a stem as if it were a loose strand within a woolen blanket. With ease I drew it out until I’d captured a stretch six feet or more in length. I pulled another, then another. My sister joined me in teasing more strands from the blanket wrapped tightly ’round our great-grandfather’s planting 90 years before—give or take a decade.
Before we knew it, we were hard at work. My sister fetched shears from the old garage that in its time had doubled as the gardener’s quarters. Through the thorny stalks of the rose bush, I fought to find the vine base stems, some an inch thick. The rose bush fought back, pricking and stinging my bare arms, as if to say, “Why do you disturb my slumber? Can’t you leave good enough alone?” But as we worked to remove the thick blanket of time and vines, I examined the curly threads of the vine that fastened stem to stalk. Were the vines predators or protectors? I wondered but decided that if the latter, they would grow back if guardians and gardeners of this place allow.
In either case—vines as villains or as guardians—my sister and I were amazed by the resilience of the rose bush . . . and the endurance of George B. Holman’s legacy.
This morning, the rose bush bursts with joy in the summer sunlight.
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© 2020 by Eric Nilsson
