A ROSE GROWS IN BROOKLYN

I was born in Brooklyn six short blocks from where I live now.  As I often tell my friends, "I didn't find my apartment, it found me."  Early in 2014, after I'd decided to move from my home in New Jersey, friends of mine who'd just bought a building in Bay Ridge offered me the place.  I said yes immediately and with that, became the fourth generation on both sides of my family to settle in Brooklyn.  My mother, my father, aunts and uncles, grandparents, and, yes, even great grandparents all chose Brooklyn.

I don't often say the word "blessing," it's a bit overused to me, and yet there seems to be no more appropriate term to describe the experience of landing here.  Because not too long after I got settled I was diagnosed with breast cancer which meant that I would have access to some of the best medical care in the country and be closer to my family.  I'd like to think that the spirits of my ancestors guided me back to Brooklyn so that I could be watched over during this most challenging time of my life.

My new apartment suits me perfectly.  It's a lovely space in a great homey neighborhood that still has mom-and-pop shops and great ethnic restaurants.  It's close to the subway, and best of all, it has a garden.  In fact, I don't think I would've been as quick to say yes to living here if I hadn't had access to some sort of garden space. 

I can't live without a garden.  I'm happiest when my hands are grimy and my face is smudged with dirt.  Gardens teach you patience.  Gardens give back beauty.  And sometimes, gardens even give you hope.

I brought a little of my Jersey garden with me when I moved to Brooklyn.  Two dwarf peach trees, a few day lilies, a handful of herbs, and one rose.  No ordinary rose, this wild beauty had never been planted.  It volunteered itself by starting as a single shoot growing up through a trellis in my front flowerbed.  I couldn't figure out how or why it came to be, but its origin didn't matter -- to me it was a special gift of nature that chose to visit my garden.  So I nurtured that single shoot as it grew bigger and stronger, and in June of that year it actually produced buds.  A few weeks later it joyfully erupted into an old-fashioned single-petaled rose with deep crimson blossoms.

Through the years, my volunteer rose sprawled over the flower bed growing bigger and taller and giving me more and more blossoms.  When I made the decision to move to Brooklyn I knew I had to bring it with me.  I couldn't leave it behind.  It was early winter and probably far too late to transplant anything, but I dug it out of the ground, trellis and all, and took it to Brooklyn. There I carved a hole in the almost frozen ground, said a private prayer of protection over it, and covered the bare root with dirt.

That winter was harsher than usual and I wasn't sure if any of the plants in the backyard would survive, but eventually it turned to spring and my Brooklyn garden began to wake up, sprouting shoots and popping out leaves and buds in a happy life ritual.  I watched and waited for the rose to grow too, but it didn't.  It sat caged in the trellis like a fossilized rib of some prehistoric dinosaur showing no signs of life.  I watered it, fertilized it, and said quiet blessings over it, but nothing happened.  Reluctantly, I finally had to accept that I'd killed it.  Oh, the guilt, I was Diane the Rose Murderer, the selfish girl who'd yanked her beautiful rose out of the ground when she knew better.  I felt so awful that I actually avoided going in that part of the garden.  I didn't want to be reminded of my dastardly deed. 

In early summer I started my cancer treatments.  Dead rose or no, that garden proved to be my oasis. During that period it wasn't easy for me to get out of the house so I spent most of my outdoor time sitting under a big green umbrella breathing in the summer air and listening to the life of the city beyond the garden walls -- the laughter of children playing in a distant backyard, the Mr. Softee truck's incessant song, dogs barking, neighbors gossiping and talking.  All these things were a reassurance that life would still be waiting for me when I was done with treatment -- something I sorely needed.

One day in September, after my second to last chemo treatment, I gathered my courage and walked over to the rose skeleton for the first time in months.  There, pushing its way up out of the ground, was a small green shoot much like the one I first saw years ago.  My wild rose had come alive!  It was too late in the season for it to produce flowers, but it surely was growing.  When I realized this I cried.  My stoic little rose had made it through its difficult season after all ... and so, I hoped, would I.

In late winter of this year, when there was still a good deal of snow on the ground in the backyard, I made my way over to my rose and inspected it for signs of life.  There they were, small red nubs peeking out of the rose canes.  It had survived another winter and was going to be just fine.

And now it is spring again and my rose is covered with buds and about to have its first bloom, an event made even more special because today, May 14th, is the first anniversary of my breast cancer diagnosis.  Happily, I'm finished with all my treatments and doing well.  Blooming, in fact, quite like my wild rose.  I'm planning a nice long trip to Europe for the summer where I hope to have new experiences to write about.  I am excited at all the possibilities that lie ahead.  I guess there's lots of life left in both of us gals.  Yes, two roses grow in Brooklyn.