The White Rose Society
Since Mother’s Day is next Sunday, I thought I’d share some thoughts with you about Mother’s Day of the year 2000. It was the first year I qualified for “the white rose society.”
When I was growing up, lots of people wore roses to church on Mother’s Day. On that day, one of my parents pinned a nice red rose on the lapel of my coat or on my dress shirt (yes, we also dressed up to go to church back then). My mother usually had some sort of simple corsage, while my father had a rose on his lapel.
The roses my parents wore were different from the one I wore. They always put on white roses.
There were two messages in those roses. First, we were doing what a lot of other people were doing that day to honor our mothers. Somehow, somewhere, the wearing of roses on Mother’s Day had become a way to honor mothers.
While, like most boys, I wasn’t too sold on wearing a flower, I really didn’t have any trouble with that if it meant that I was honoring my mom. I thought she was pretty great (except maybe when she jerked that fly swatter off the wall and let me know she didn’t think what I was doing right then was so great).
The second “message of the roses,” though, has become more meaningful to me over the years. The fact that my parents were wearing white roses meant that they were honoring the memory of a mother who was no longer with them. They had, in fact, never been with me. More accurately, I had never been with them. I never knew either of my grandmothers. Both had died years before I was born.
The red rose I was wearing signified that my mom was still alive. I guess that, during those years when everybody called me Jimmy, I thought she always would be. Since October of 1999, though, that has not been the case. That’s why I qualified for “the white rose society” for the first time on Mother’s Day in 2000.
Ever since that year, if I were to return to the tradition of wearing a rose on Mother’s Day, it would be a white one. I think that I may now have some understanding of what my own parents may have felt as they pinned on a white rose year after year.
This has given me a perspective that I think allows me to give some advice for those who could, if you choose to do so, wear a red rose next Sunday. Please try to understand how God has blessed you and express your gratitude to Him.
Along with this, please take a little extra time to give your mother some time, a hug, and a heartfelt “thank you” just for being your mom. Don’t make this a “once a year” thing to do. Try to make it a regular part of your life.
If you don’t live close to your mother, a phone call means more than you may ever know. I happen to live with one of those mothers whose children are some distance away from us. I can tell by the cheery tone in her voice when she answers the phone that either our son or our daughter has called.
Anything you do to express your appreciation to your mother will mean a lot to her. Anytime you choose to express that appreciation will also mean a lot. It may even mean more when it is not done on some special day. The mere fact that you did something will make that day meaningful for her.
It will become more meaningful for you, too–when you are a member of “the white rose society.”
“Her children rise up and call her blessed…” (Prov. 31:28)
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AUTHOR: Jim Faughn
