A rose by any other name still ain't your damn rose!

When I was in the sixth grade, my school district didn't have the money to bus students, so my friends and I walked the mile to school and back every day. Northern California was often mild weather-wise, so it wasn't really that big of a deal, and we enjoyed the daily adventure besides. The neighborhoods we passed through varied from Post-War rundown to white trash spectacular... and there were some very nice little homes that we passed along the way, homes that captured my imagination. These were very well maintained, with gardens and birdbaths and shutters on the windows, making me believe I was strolling by gingerbread homes in an enchanted forest. One house in particular had the most amazing array of rose bushes - trees, really, since they were taller than us - all along the perimeter of the property. I don't really remember the house but I remember those roses, at once beautiful and fragrant and SO tempting. What I also remember, however, is the chain-link fence that protected those roses from, well, us.
Of my friends, I was the tallest, so I must have had the longest reach. On fine Spring afternoons, there were often buds just on the other side of that fence, and if I angled my wrist just right I could sometimes snag one. If I was lucky, it would snap off along the branch just a few inches from the flower itself, and we'd have our prize. If the stars didn't align, the rose would explode in a rain of petals to the ground below....and we'd high-tail it out of there.
On one afternoon that still hums along in my memory, I somehow found myself walking home alone....and I landed directly in front of that floral prison camp. Not a foot from me bloomed the most gorgeous deep pink roses. I scanned the street for witnesses....quiet in all directions. Carefully, I shifted my book bag to one hip and I snaked my arm in through that fence, trying to come up right below the prettiest of the blossoms. I was just brushing my fingers against the soft silk of the petals when a woman stepped around the rose bush and scared the living crap out of me. She was very severe looking - hair pulled back in a tight, rigid bun. Big cats-eye glasses. A dirt-dusted apron and heavy work gloves, and in one had she held a pair of pinking shears. For just a moment I wondered if she was going to try to take off my fingers. I wanted to run but I stood there, caught in her glare.
"I really wish you kids would stop destroying my roses," she stated flatly with just a touch of irritation in her voice. "You see this here?" She was gesturing to an empty spot where a branch had obviously been snapped off. Perhaps by me. "This is ruined now, a bloom won't come back here anymore. In order to keep the roses blooming, I have to tend to these bushes, and trim them properly. The blooms need to be snipped like so...." and she used the sheers to cleanly take one of the flowers off of the bush. "And then the flower can come back." All the while she was talking I was stricken dumb, wondering why she was taking the time to explain all of this instead of just yelling at me. I was even more flabbergasted when she held the rose through the fence, offering it to me. "All you and your friends have to do is ask, and I'll be happy to share my roses. Just let me use the right tools so the bush isn't harmed."
I don't remember if that twelve-year-old me said anything to that woman as I took the rose and walked away. I would like to think that I apologized for hurting her rose bush, and thanked her for the beautiful gift. Being an awkward adolescent I may have just wandered away wordlessly. I do remember that tears of embarrassment and shame burned at my eyes as I walked home, and I cradled that rose like it was made of delicate glass.
I told you all of that so I can tell you this: What I learned that day was that sometimes, in an effort to carelessly procure something we want, we end up ruining it in the process. But if we are patient and kind, we can have the item we treasure AND make sure it is still intact for someone else to appreciate later on. I really and truly wish that Jay Leno had lived in my neighborhood, and had a run-in with my scary yet wonderful gardener-lady. Maybe she could have taught him that having what you want isn't worth it if you cause irreparable damage while you are getting it. And maybe she could have shown him that kindness and honesty works so much better than treachery and deceit. And if none of those things happened to come about....maybe she could have cut off his damn fingers with those pinking sheers! Not that it would have accomplished anything positive, but somehow I think I'd feel better....