Remember the song years ago that said we needed to stop and smell the roses along the way? Well I did that yesterday. I am in the process of going through my sister Sylvia’s effects – and there are many of them. Not just the paperwork but the place that she and her late husband Don lived in for the past couple decades. They accumulated a lot of stuff in their lifetimes.

But in the midst of that there is one item that has been in our family for a long time – roses. Not the same plants that we grew up with, obviously, but the same type of plant. We had roses in the backyard of our acre lot growing up in Portland. We had a row of rose bushes down in Phoenix when it was just Mom and Dad and a teenage me. My wife and I had roses at our house and I think all my sisters had roses at one time or another where they lived. We all moved around a bit but roses were there.

Considering we all grew up in the City of Roses – Portland – and marched in the Rose Festival Parade (not Pasadena but Portland) it is not surprising. We have fond memories of visiting the Rose Test Gardens near the Portland Zoo with the great views of the city of Portland.

Roses are great reminders of the beauty of life. No matter how bad things get and no matter how depressing the news can be. No matter the struggles we go through. There is always beauty in the world, if only we take time to view – and smell it. So I took time to smell the roses at my late sisters house and take a picture for a reminder. My email is malfunctioning at present so I don’t have the picture posted here, but as soon as I can I will post it.