The Day I met Rose
Winters
Author's Note:
A rose, a cat, and
snow. That was the ingredient to write this tale. And that's when I met Rose
Winter.
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It was an early
morning in 1974 when the young boy stood in the street carrying his stalk of roses.
It's a Saturday morning and there should be fewer cars on the road, but he was
very careful when he stepped onto the pavement. He looked right and left and
back to his right before he took his first step onto the road. But he paused
when he saw the cat walking across without a care in the world. It's a silky
black cat with a spot of white under its chin, and it's taking its time despite
the cold weather we are having now. It was snowing last night but they plow the
road this morning. But here the cat is moving at its speed without a care for
the snow or the cars.
Wait, are there no cars on the road? Yes, none are moving as far as he can see. The cat has reached his side of the road and it came up to him. The cat moved up to the young boy's boots and rubbed its body against the leather. Maybe it's doing that to rub off the cold snow on its body or it knows the boy. The boy stooped down to pick up the cat behind its front paws and said something to it. Then he put the cat down on the pavement and the cat slowly made its way down the road. The cat stopped at five paces away and then turned its head to look at the boy. Then it went back on its journey with its tail upright in the rear.
Now the little boy
picked up the stalk of roses he dropped on the pavement when he picked up the
cat. He shook off the snow that got picked up in the rose petals and held it in
his hand again. He stood there again and looked at both ends of the road for
any cars. There is none so he slowly made his way across on the road; ever slowly
with his right leg in the cast. He broke it last week when he went snowboarding
down this very same pavement here and crashed into my house fences.
I was about to
leave my house that morning when I heard the crash. I ran to the fence and saw him
in a very bad pose against the fence. I helped him up and called the rescue
team to assist with the boy. The last I saw of him was when they closed the
door on the ambulance and not till now as he is hopping across the road. He
hopped up to my repaired fence and looked at it. I think he must be trying to
remember how he crashed into it and ended up in the hospital. He opened the low
gate and hopped into the door.
"Hello there.
You must be the boy I rescued last week. You did not tell me your name properly
as you were in tears then. My name is Rose, and I lived here." I held out
my hand to assist the young boy into my warm living hall where the fireplace is
available. As I was to close the door, the cat came running and took its place on
the rug at the fireplace.
"Hello,
Mrs.Rose. My name is Danny and I am here to thank you. Here are some roses for
you but they are not real. I cannot afford any real ones, so I took these
plastic ones. I hope you like them."
"Why, thank
you. Would you like to have a cup of hot cocoa and you can tell me how to snowboard
as I never did get to that when I was young like you."
So starts a
beautiful companionship between one lady named Rose with a cat when it was
snowing that year in 1974.
Today is the 30th
anniversary of our companionship as I laid the bouquet of roses at the resting
place of Rose Winters 1910-1980. She never did do the snowboarding but she
shared my stories on it for some years. As for the cat, he is resting under a
bed of roses in her garden during the summer/spring season.
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