Dreams are strange....

This is a picture of my grandmother taken sometime in the 1960's. She lived in El Monte California and had this unbelievable flower garden in her back yard. I was very young, maybe 7 or 8 years old, maybe younger, but as small as I was it seemed like her back yard was a fairyland. I would play for hours and make believe that I was a princess or a gypsy or some other storybook character and her flower garden was my kingdom.....

My grandmother passed away in the early 1990's at the age of 87 and to this day when I am sick or scared or sad I want my "Nonnie".

Last week I had a strange dream. I dreamed I returned to this yard. In my dream I seemed to know my grandmother wasn't there and hadn't been there for a long time. I returned however with the intention of digging up some of her prized rose bushes to plant in my yard. When I got there the roses were all dead, no one had watered them or taken care of them at all. But what made the dream strange was that on the other side of the chain link fence, on all sides of her yard, were graves and tombstones for as far as I could see.

I know exactly what this dream meant....it meant that the things she planted in my heart had not been nurtured. They were dead and the ground was dry and barren and that all around me are the dead....

I hate October, have I mentioned that to you before....my grandmother died in October - so did my son.

And yet....for the first time since moving to this place my own roses that I have tried unsuccessfully to grow for seven years are growing like weeds and still full of rose buds and gorgeous blossoms...and as for me, just like my roses I refuse to yeild to the changing seasons.