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Illustration by Marley Allen-Ash
My mother’s climbing red rose bush comes to mind as if it was a doorway to childhood memories of our family home. These deep red roses sprung up with zeal each summer along the side of our front porch in June. Ours was a modest working class house on a quiet dead-end street. What made these roses so special was their vibrancy and resilience. I believe it was our gardener, who summoned them each spring and pruned them back in the fall. It is not only their abundance and colour that I can recall, but also their sweet fragrance on a hot summer’s day.
The porch at the front of our house had large glass windows with white panes. The white of the window panes contrasted the house’s red brick wall against which the roses grew. I felt safe as a child whenever I opened that porch door after school. The memory of these roses brings me much comfort and I like to think they maybe brought some comfort to my mother as well.
Why do I always think of them as mother’s roses? One of the maiden names she used was Rose. It had been shortened from the more ethnic sounding “Rosenstein.” Like many Jewish immigrants, my parents wanted to assimilate into a society in which there was overt antisemitism.
My mother Molly was destined to work her entire life. She was groomed for this role by a dominating mother who was herself a business owner. As the eldest daughter, expectations to serve family needs were firmly placed on Molly’s shoulders.
Most of Molly’s working life was at the family’s variety store and ticket agency. This business was located in the heart of Toronto at College Street and Spadina Road. It was a mostly Jewish neighbourhood at that time, the centre of the clothing manufacturing district. Our grandparent’s dry goods store was only a few blocks away where we would frequently visit. We were latch-key kids, the children who must carry a house key as there was no adult at home to greet them after school. To me our house was like a welcoming parent, my safe place until our parents came home.
Although our house was warm and cozy with summer roses, it was not a happy home. My parents worked seven days a week, 12 hour days placing a significant burden on family life. They brought home with them many unresolved conflicts which inevitably unravelled during a two hour supper break with their kids. These conflicts resurfaced after the business closed at one in the morning. My three older brothers and I would be roused from sleep when hearing the key in the lock of our front door. The sound signalled their return home bringing with it the possibility of my mother’s explosive anger and my father’s inevitable emotional retreat. And yet my mother and father worked devotedly alongside each other for over 40 years until she was diagnosed with terminal cancer.
It was not until I was an adult that my brothers and I shared stories about the angst we felt as children when hearing the key turn the dreaded front door lock.
As a child I mourned not having a parent who was home after school. Like our roses, we had to grow up and flourish on our own. To this day I grieve for my mother whose unhappiness pervaded every aspect of our family life during my childhood.
I hope that these dazzling flowers reminded her that home could be inviting, pleasurable and a sanctuary instead of yet another demand placed upon her. I picture my mother standing on our driveway in the front of our house on a hot summer day. My father would be waiting for her in the driver’s seat of the car. In this picture she’s wearing a floral cotton dress. She would take a moment to glance back at her roses on the side of our porch. In my mind she smells their sweetness, while her hand rests on the car’s door handle, a pleasant pause before the onslaught of her work day.
Perhaps she thinks of nothing in particular. Perhaps that day she longs to be at home instead of overwhelmed by work. Perhaps in that moment of contemplation my mother wonders how something so magnificent, so beautiful like these brilliant red roses could flourish, expecting nothing from her in return but to be enjoyed.
Karen E Faith lives in Toronto.
