Blue Roses

Some years back, I had the pleasure of caring for the most wonderful little old lady, as she lay there, in her bed in the Nursing Home, making the last few steps of her journey in this life.
As she took her last few breath's, she whispered, "Blue Roses" and I immediately took off in search of some...something, anything that might qualify for Blue Roses, in that Nursing Home.
I found a bunch of fake flowers in the Activity Room, and grabbed them and ran back to her room. I was too late...she was gone, but, "Blue Roses" has intrigued me ever since.
I have wondered many times, what it meant to her...
This is what "I" imagined....

She is standing at the gate, waiting for him to depart the airplane.
She reaches up and pinches her cheeks, hoping it will put just the right amount of blush on them, although she is sure she is already blushing from just the thought of seeing hm again.
She is wearing his favorite blue dress and hat, her stockings are new, and the seams are straight.
Her eyes shine with anticipation, and she cannot help the smile that is on her face.
She wants to look so beautiful for him. She wants to see it in his eyes, that he thinks she is gorgeous when he sees her.

It has been three years since he boarded that train and left her all alone.
Three years of praying each and everyday, that he'd come home safe and sound to her.
Three years of long love letters.
Three years of longing to see his face, the way his eyes crinkled up when he smiled, and those dimples that had won her heart forever, five years ago.
Three years of constant worry.
Worry that he'd be hurt, maimed, or (God Forbid) killed.
Three years of many a sleepless night, when that thought got in her head.

Imagining him lying injured or dead in some jungle, with no help at hand.
Imagining him taken prisoner, held in the most deplorable conditions.
China-Burma was a horrible place, or so they told her.
His letters never reflected that though. In fact, he wrote often about the great beauty of the country, and how wonderful many of the people were.
He wrote of home more than anything though. Of being there, doing everyday things, things completely unrelated to war.
She thought he was reliving those moments with each and every word. That, by writing about it so intensely, he could actually be there, instead of hunkered down in some foxhole, IF he were lucky.
Sometimes, the only cover he had were the staring eye's of the night sky.

All of a sudden, she is shoved sideways,nearly knocked down, and she wonders why these people, who are standing there waiting with her, are shoving and pushing like they are, and then it comes to her.

She is not twenty three.
She is not standing at the airport waiting for him to depart the airplane.
She is eighty years old, lying in her bed, each and every bone in her body hurting, as her Nurse's turn her over and try to rearrange her so that bedsores will not form on her frail, emaciated body.

That day...the day he returned home from War, was many years ago, a memory made in a time that has long past, no matter how real it is in her mind.
He is gone, many years ago now.
He left her alone again for the second and final time, what is it...ten years ago ?
She doesn't really remember, except to know that she has been without him for far too long now, and she is ready to be reunited with him again, forever this time.

Death cannot come soon enough for her, for with it they will be young again, together again, laughing and happy, and looking forward to a life together.
The War is over, and times are more prosperous than they have been for a very long time.
This time, when they are reunited, it will be forever, and she is impatiently waiting for it.

The Nurse's finish the task of getting her settled, and as her body calms, she eases back into
her memory and smiles as she sees him get off the airplane.
She waves so that he will see her, and it is all she can do not to break through the people waiting there for their loved ones, and run into his arm's.
But, wait...what is that he has in his arms ?

No, it can't be, she thinks, but as he gets closer, she sees that it is.
He has the biggest bouquet of Blue Roses she could ever imagine in his arms.
Where in the world did he find them, she wonders.
She smiles as she remembers telling him that Blue Roses were her favorite, after he had asked her if she liked Roses.
She'd thought of the Rudyard Kipling poem, Blue Roses then, and knowing that he was fishing to try to find out if buying her roses would please her, she had told him her favorite was BlueRoses, knowing he'd never find any.
He didn't need to be spending his hard earned money on buying her flowers anyway.
He had brought her violets though, after that...the closest thing to Blue Roses he could find, she guessed...and, she had loved them.

Now, here he was standing before her, his eyes crinkled up by a huge smile on his face, and those dimples, so close she could reach out and touch one, and she thought she would swoon right then and there.
She would have thrown herself into his arms, but for that huge bouquet of the most beautiful roses she had ever seen, between her and his arms.

He hands them to her, and she takes them and inhales the lovely fragrance that is pouring off of them, and looks up and smiles.
She tells him than, that she had no idea that Blue Roses even really existed, and where in the world did he find these ?
They were waiting for me to pick them up from a peddler on the side of the road in China, he tells her.

She set's them down on a bench beside her and he slowly envelopes her in his arms.
He holds her close and then kisses her long and lovingly, and she is finally home again, for the first time in three years, and she is home to stay now.

She is lying there in her bed, gasping for her last breath, and yet she is smiling.
She whispers something and her Nurse bends down over her, to hear what she is trying to say.
As she let's go of that final sigh, she whispers again, softly...Blue Roses....and she is gone.