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| Rosa 'Brother Cadfael' 28 June 2023 |
Because I am filling holes in my blog I am putting this one in a near past even though the scan and this blog I have written today 28 June 2023.
I have written often of my mentor and friend Brother Edwin Reggio, C.S.C. I met him in 1958 and we were in touch until he died in April 2013. Amazingly he met both my granddaughters and Rosemary.
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| Brother Edwin Reggio, C.S.C. |
Just like I think of Rosemary in just about any instant that I am awake (particularly since she died December 9, 2020) Brother Edwin is with me as he taught me to think, and to treat people with respect (I fail at this every once in a while).
I equate the English Rose, Rosa ‘Brother Cadfael’ with him as I took him a large inkjet print of a scan of it years ago. When I visited him a year later, the scanograph was beautifully framed (he made the frame) and under it he had a brass plaque with my name and date.
I remember the Brother Edwin I met for the first time. He was 26 when I was 16. He was barely over 5 ft but he had muscular forearms. I found out later that he did Olympic rings for exercise.
That Brother Edwin shares in my memory one of him the last time I saw him. He was losing his memory because of spinal injury virus. But even then when I asked him if he would miss Texas when he was sent to a special facility in Southbend, Indiana, he answered, “For me to miss Texas I will first have to understand the concept of what Texas is.”
In my memory, too is an original Star Trek episode featuring the crew being in an overcrowded planet. Behind a glass window, behind Captain Kirk, a multitude of people shuffled from one end to another. It seemed that there was no room to stay in one place.
Now at age 80 I see that window virtually empty as so many people I knew, liked, loved are all gone.
And before we all go there is that aging of the body as it deteriorates to that inevitable parting of body and soul.
Of the soul I have to state here that I never did ask (it was not my place) Brother Edwin if he still had all his faith. I grieve my Rosemary especially as both of us knew that we would never meet again.
But in the sober content of this blog I must add an air of cheerfulness. While we humans may slowly go from good to bad I do think that today’s Rosa ‘Brother Cadfael’ looks beautiful in its decay on its way to rose oblivion.
I believe that Brother Edwin would smile and tell me something that not only would lift my spirits but perhaps even steer me way from my absolute doubt.
