I associate the scent of roses with my Grandma Shirley. This is because she always stocked rose-scented toiletries in the guest bathroom that we used when we visited her growing up.
She passed over two decades ago, and it has only been recently that I started talking to her. It’s kind of like prayer, but instead of to God I’m talking to her. And ever since I started talking to her, she sends me signs in the form of a rose. It’s usually clever roses, hardly ever an actual rose flower.
And then I started talking to her about men, about how I was in a place where I wanted to meet the love, or a love, of my life. She listened and said she would ask around. See what other grandmas had single grandsons that might be a good fit.
I told my childhood best friend Janet about this, and we giggled as we remembered that we once choreographed a dance to the song Iko Iko, and we adapted the lyrics just for fun:
My grandma and your grandma, sitting by the fire. My grandma says to your grandma: I’m going to set your world on fire!
I imagine my grandma Shirley mingling with other dead grandmas and conspiring to “set my world on fire” with one of their grandsons. A few have come through, each with a sign of a rose. Not an actual bouquet of roses from said man, but that would be romantic. The signs have been subtler than that, as if a little cheeky wink from Grandma Shirley.
So far, the men with the rose signs have been more like bridge boyfriends than something long term. But that’s just sometimes how set-ups go.
So yesterday I was minding my own business, making a last-minute run to a dress shop for a last-minute photo shoot (for this morning). I walked into the shop and there was one other woman shopping. We both ended up heading to the dressing room at the same time so I chatted with her through the dressing room wall as we were trying on our things. Each time I tried on a new dress I exited the dressing room to check it out in the big mirror and I urged her to do the same. She was warm, but reluctant. So we just chatted through the wall instead.
One of the dresses in my dressing room haul was a white dress with red roses. Even though I am not big on patterns, red isn’t my typical color palette, and its midi-length is not my style, it caught my eye because of Grandma Shirley. I was trying it on for her more than anything else. And of the seven or so dresses I tried on, the red roses one was the only one that really stood out.
But now I was the reluctant one. I liked it, but it wasn’t a hell yes. So I set it aside at the register and contemplated it while I did a loop of the perimeter of the store to see if there was anything I had overlooked. As I did that the woman in the dressing room next to me checked out. And as she left out the front door of the shop, the woman who rang her up said: Bye, Shirley. I’ll see you next time!
…to be continued…
In the meantime, if you have a grandma that would THRIVE on my matchmaking committee, drop her name in the comments and lmk if she sends you signs.
Helen (Nana) picks good ones