The last two years have been really tough for me. My mother passed away in February two years ago and it feels as if I am still mourning her loss. I think a big part of it was that her death was very unexpected. It’s not like she was ill and I was able to prepare myself for the day. Instead, I just woke up one morning and she was gone. To be honest, I’m not sure which is worse. Waking up one day and suddenly losing a loved one, or watching a loved one live a slow and painful final few months until eventually passing on. Either way, it’s going to be bad and hard on those around. I think the only upside to the latter is that death almost feels like a chance for your loved one to stop suffering.

I live in my mum’s old house now. It took me almost a year to be able to step back into it. Her once perfectly maintained garden became nothing but an untamed mess. I took it upon myself to start replanting some things. My friend is an avid gardener so I asked her where to buy flower seeds online. She gave me the names of a few different websites to browse from. Eventually, I settled on a site and started purchasing my plants. They arrived quite soon and I started planting. My mum’s favourite flowers were roses, so I bought a large variety of rose plants.

I had been growing the roses for the last year and a half. Strangely, I noticed the roses weren’t blooming this year. My friend informed me that it wasn’t necessarily my fault. One morning I woke up and noticed a beautiful bloom from my climbing roses. I then realised it was the morning of what would have been my mum’s birthday! Somehow these roses that weren’t blossoming for whatever reason were waiting for my mum’s birthday to appear. It’s definitely a bizarre coincidence, but a very beautiful one at that.