Mrs. Hennessy stopped by this morning and asked to see our roses. The only ones we have are the miniature pink ones on the west wall of the west wing. They seem to be the only things other that the brick wall behind them that loves the afternoon heat.She had seen them day after day for the last month as she was out driving with Donis, a foreign exchange student who has been boarding with her this semester. The two stopped by on Thursday, rang the bell at the gate, and were welcomed into the west gardens. Mrs. Hennessey said that she had not seen these rose bushes bloom like this in the six decades she’d lived on the island. She recalled the previous owners, the Post Family, and how it was their German gardener who planted the miniature roses.
I asked why she remembered all this, why were these bushes so memorable. She said the bushes and the roses were special to her because the matriarch of the family, Constance Post, gave Mrs. Hennessey roses from those bushes for her wedding bouquet.
Mrs. Hennessey reached out and stroked one small cluster of fully bloomed flowers.
“I was married in 1949, sixty years ago, and Mrs. Post was married in 1889, sixty years before me. She had come from a fine family and she married into a fine family, just as I did. When she gave me those roses, she said she wanted to do it as a wish that I would never forget the simple things. Never, ever, forget the simple things.”
We talked for a few more minutes and then we walked to the gate. We told Donis goodbye since she was returning to France at the end of the month, and we told Mrs. Hennessey to visit the Estate’s gardens anytime. Anytime at all.