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The Heaven-Sent Rose

After Dad died, we needed a sign that God cared. What would it be?

-by Tekki Lomnicki

I was five years old when my father had his first heart attack. That night in bed I begged Jesus to please make Daddy well.

Two weeks later, the man who came home from the hospital was different. He was quieter, more ready to listen, and laughed a lot more. Before his heart attack, he would work at a pants factory until 9:00 p.m., but my new daddy got home at 6:30 every day.

Sundays were no longer spent working at home; instead we wandered through greenhouses and nurseries, picking out rose bushes. My brother Wally and I chose our favorites from the photographs pictured on the plant tags. My father planted rose bushes all around the house. Every free moment we found him on his knees pruning, weeding, and caring for the roses.

Thirty-three years later, my father was rushed to the hospital due to complications from congestive heart failure. The doctors didn't know how long he had-possibly only a month or maybe, if he was fortunate, a couple of years. Every day after work, I found him propped up in his hospital bed, hooked to his IVs, waiting for me. Most days his spirits were low, but I could always make him laugh with stories about the antics of Wally's boys—his grandsons.

When my father mentioned the doctors were considering him for a possible heart transplant, it was a ray of hope. That night in bed, I felt five years old again—begging Jesus to save my daddy's life.

But Dad was diabetic, making his odds for survival slim. A heart transplant was out of the question. The doctors did, however, suggest treatment with an experimental drug that could extend his life. Dad agreed and was transferred to another hospital. Amazingly, in a few days, his body responded to the drug and he was moved from intensive care. To celebrate, my mother placed a vase of white roses from his garden on the bedside table in his hospital room.

Sorting things out
That June evening the whole room was filled with the smell of roses, and my father pointed out proudly that they were from his garden. For the first time in three weeks, he was cheerful and chatty, enjoying the televised Cubs game with his roommate.

Before I left he whispered, "I'll really sleep tonight without all those tubes yanking at me. Besides I'm coming home soon!" In the car, I thanked Jesus for the physical change in my father, for his new lease on life.

But a few hours later, I was awakened by a frantic phone call from my mother. Dad's heart had stopped four times. The doctors had revived him each time, but he finally died. Strangely enough, in that moment, I felt like a blanket of peace was thrown over me. I knew my father was fine, because he was with Jesus.

The following months were tough; everywhere I looked I thought I saw my father. Even though I had support from friends who had also lost a parent, at work I often put my head down on my desk and cried. I spent every weekend with my mother in the house where I grew up.

One Saturday I arrived to find her and my four-year-old nephew Wesley on their knees weeding the roses. I joined them there for weeks to come, remembering my father in every new blossom.

At the end of summer, Mom decided to sell the house; it was just too sad to live there without my father. Years earlier they had planned to build an apartment above their tuxedo rental store. Determined to go through with it, my mother found the dusty old blueprints and hired a contractor. Even though the real estate market was down, our house sold in less than two months.

When Mom told me the news, my heart sank. That house was all I had left of my father. Every shelf, every hook, every picture was lovingly put there by him. And the roses. Would the new owners take care of the roses?

A frost-tipped message
It was late October when we moved the last boxes out of the house. Thirty-two years of memories were stacked into Wally's van that cold evening and shuttled to her new apartment. We had already had our first frost, and I was wearing my winter coat as I walked into the house for the last time.

A friend had suggested I go into each room and say good-bye to the memories there, thanking the Lord for every one of them. I saved my favorite room for last-a big family room where my father had built a solarium for his plants. I sat on the floor in the empty room and cried. Finally I prayed, "Lord, thank you for the memories I had in this room and for giving me such a wonderful father."

I got up to leave, whispering one last request, "Jesus, I know that I'm not supposed to ask you for a sign, that I need to walk by faith and not by sight, but I'm asking anyway. Could you let me know my father is really all right?"

With a sense of relief, I quietly closed the back door and walked to my car. Suddenly I heard my mother from around the corner of the house screaming my name. I could see my breath as I ran.

I stopped short beside my mother, who was standing in front of a frozen and withered rose bush. A single white rose, as fresh and alive as the one that graced my father's night stand in the hospital, gleamed in the moonlight.

Mother didn't know of my prayerful request, but I'm certain that rose was meant as a sign for her, too. I carefully clipped it for her to enjoy.

The following summer, I drove past our old house to check on the roses. The bushes were a tangle of weeds, without one bloom. It made me sad, remembering all the hard work my father had put into them.

But as I drove away, I realized I didn't need those roses any more as a sign of God's love.

Copyright © 1996 by the author or Christianity Today International/Today's Christian magazine (formerly Christian Reader).
Click here for reprint information.

Last Updated: October 18, 1996

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