The Rosebud

There’s this concept from Citizen Kane, ‘the rosebud,’ that essentially explains why someone becomes the way they do. It’s a scene, a theme, an explanation to why we are the way we are.

In Citizen Kane, it is the sled. Something owned as a child. Representing innocence and maternal love and the loss of it throughout life.

I’m trying to think what mine would be. If I had to qualify a defining theme in my life to one scene, what would it be?

There’s the obvious ones that come to mind, the ones that I’ve carried for so long. But, I don’t want those to be my defining nature. I’m tired of trauma being in the driver’s seat. It’s the least interesting thing about me. So, something not traumatizing yet defining that is the ‘rosebud’ for my character.

Maybe it’s the time when as a child I stood out in the rain for 45 minutes with an umbrella over the trashcans because I didn’t want them to get sick. I could probably go on some long intellectual rant about empathy and misplacing it and the joy of care for its own sake.

Maybe it’s an instrument or a pen or a weathered book.

The thing that keeps coming to mind is the ladybug ring my grandmother gave me when I was 2, one of my first memories. Both of my parents worked full time so most of my first memories are with my grandmother, Jean. She was one of the great loves of my life.

She gave me this gold ring with a black and red ladybug on top. I remember wearing it religiously until I lost it one day. She held me as I cried.

She held me through a lot of things.

I’m wearing her ring right now. A different one. Also gold. It was her first engagement ring in the 50s and one of the few things I kept after she passed. I chose this and a small painting and her Bible. The family squabbled over the rest while I quietly took care of my grandpa and adjusted to the reality of a life without her.

My grandmother was one of those people who lit up the whole room. She had a presence about her, a confidence. And she loved the Lord with all her heart. She was widowed young with four daughters under the age of ten. She held her head up, worked hard and faced the impossible with a level of integrity and grit that I still admire to this day.

Kendrick has this verse where he says his grandmas gone so nobody’s praying for him. It felt like that losing Jean. Like I lost my guardian angel.

I remember losing her vividly. How frozen in time it all was.

The pan and two plates in the drying rack. I can remember the meal and the conversation. Waking up that morning with a distinct feeling and leaving the apartment to see her.

She had gone downhill fast. Unexpectedly. The week before I had walked in and she had greeted me with her usual “hey honey” followed by “everyone’s making a big ol fuss about me”

I sat at her feet and massaged her legs to alleviate the leg cramps as I had done a hundred times before.

The following week she was all but gone, laying on the hospice bed as we waited for her to let go. I had brought over chamomile flowers from the farmer’s market. Kissed my grandpa’s cheek. Hugged Christine. I knew the time was coming.

My grandmother notoriously would not go anywhere without lipstick or her purse. Some of my favorite memories were following her around church or the mall or Harpoon Henry’s as she would turn back asking if I had her purse. Asking for that specific shade of lipstick we had picked out. How I loved being her little steward.

Her engagement ring sat in a small shell on her bedside table. I put it on for strength. Wove the chamomile flowers into her hair. Grabbed her purse from the closet. Her favorite shade of lipstick. I did her makeup one last time and put the purse under her arm. Whispered in her ear, “Hey honey, you’ve got your lipstick and your purse. You’re good to go. Heaven’s waiting for you.”

I sat on the couch and held my grandpa’s hand as we watched a John Wayne film, something we had done a hundred times before. Enacting our little rituals. Within 30 minutes she was gone.

I can remember that day with a clarity I usually drown out. The grace and the rawness and the tragedy of it all. The strength I had. The strength I didn’t.

I could handle her dying but I couldn’t handle hugging my mother. Funny how that works.

Now as I sit here in a different life wearing the same ring, I feel myself asking for her strength again. The strength for this next season. The strength to live out this next part.

I started wearing this ring again because people see me with the baby and no ring and get curious. Particularly men. I don’t like the attention. Something about being a single mom can strike a “damsel in distress” cord. I am on a whole inward journey with God and made a commitment to step back from dating. Focus on my son. My career. Build us a sustainable life. I don’t want to be rescued. I want to lean into this part of my life.

As I type this, I’m kind of kicking myself.

It wasn’t like God asked me into this. God has asked me to do many things, but not this. I made this commitment of my own volition. When I made the decision, I wasn’t quite aware of what was right in front of me. My scope of vision had been so narrow, so caught up in my situation.

I started to feel a strong call into ministry at the end of last year. I counseled with Patty over coffee about my vision to help young mothers and how I wasn’t sure how to get from where I am: a single mother working full time to support her son to a place of ministry: pouring out to support other mothers while still providing.

We both agreed to pray about it.

That night I had a dream. I was talking to this person about starting the ministry and all the pitfalls and my confusion in how to get it started. He was holding a CG Jung book in his hand. It was the book my grandmother had given me in high school. With a pen he scratched out certain letters and added letters until it said “just lean into it.” We parted ways and he shouted back at me “just lean into it.”

Something about that dream stuck with me. It was so vivid and to this day I can remember it with the kind of clarity that usually comes with a memory rather than a dream. And I decided to listen. I decided to lean in.

Things have changed rapidly since that day. I’m learning to hold it all with open hands and trust that God has a plan far better than anything I could cook up. That the new job I just started and the work I’m doing with the city and the changes I’m making in life are all leading towards this vision he gave me. That as I lean in fully to this life, the sacrifices are seeds sewn for a later Spring.

And as I sit here, I feel Jean’s presence. After she passed, I couldn't feel her presence anymore. It was so distinct, like a piece of the air around me had evaporated. There was a night when I was sitting outside of my Laguna apartment and praying, figuring out if I could still swing the rent after I quit my job to stay with grandpa.

I felt her presence for the first time that night. It was almost as if she was massaging my legs, as I had done for her so many times. The distinct feeling that I had been planted in Laguna for a reason came through. I decided to stay here, unsure of why this was the place God wanted me.

As things become more clear in my life, I am starting to understand the theme. The rosebud. Mine is my grandmother’s ring. The thing I hold onto for strength. For commitment. For understanding.

It represents the legacy she has passed down to me. Of prayer. Of faith. Of integrity in impossible situations.

That the narrow road is leading me home.