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A Rosebush Replanted

Writer's picture: Justin H. BriggsJustin H. Briggs

I showed up early on Mother’s Day, in the late spring, on a day meant to feel like summer. Getting to the house right on time, it took me a few minutes to see where everyone was. I was here to work, after all, so time to be proactive. I called the boss and he told me to come around to the back side of the house. The boss’s home. I’d be doing work at the boss’s home.


The sun was already up, and I had managed a cup of coffee. The harder stuff was in the past, where it needed to stay. Years in the past. Stay put. Extra money on the weekends helped make ends meet, and kept me from falling off the edge. A bit of purpose in the late spring.


When I made it to the back of the house, I saw a sight which gave me pause. The boss’s son was hard at work, for him, raking up last season’s mulch in a floor bed. Didn’t count on help. But the boss shook my hand and laid out the work for the morning. Weeding the rose garden and then mulching with fresh chips. I’d be working the power tools. The boss’s son wasn’t reliable for that sort of thing.


The boss’s son was already sweating, which surprised me, given what little I knew about him. He was raking the old mulch away after he plucked the weeds, then he’d put the rake down and clear a fresh patch of weeds, then rake again. There were maybe 15 bags of fresh mulch ready to go. 


The boss’s wife came out to the back porch and said ‘hi!’. Known to be quite the god fearing woman, you did not want to end up on her bad side. But I could not recall her ever showing me that side. Her son had seen it, I’m sure the boss had seen it, but in the early light of this Mother’s Day, she was all smiles.


The boss handed me a mechanical hedge trimmer, a metal and plastic rig with oscillating blades which was supposed to make the work of trimming the rosebushes that much easier, cleaner, neater. I’d pull some heavy weeds from in the rosebushes, cutting and scraping my forearms in the process. All the while, the boss’s son kept getting up and going inside.


He must have seen the look on my face the next time he came out because all he said was, “Too many meds. Gotta stay hydrated.”


The boss’s son had a history of bullshit, either figuratively in speech or literally in action. I wanted none of it. He’d fucked up his relationship in the city and had to move back in with the parental units. What a complete disgrace. The guy must be forty. Get your shit together.


He took to raking again, with maybe a 10’ x10’ section of weeds left to pull. He stooped with a hunch, like something was tight in his back. He stooped lower than I could, though, and was working as if doing penance, something these Catholics practice all the damn time. Killing yourself for salvation.


By 11am we were mostly done with the flowerbed. The boss’s son started dumping mulch piles out to spread with his rake. He was clumsy and urgent, as if he could just rush through the work. His glasses kept falling off into the fill. What a mess. He dropped all the bags and kept raking. 


About that time, the boss’s wife came back out to the porch and took orders for lunch. Hilltop Cafe was a rare treat so of course I ordered a hamburger and salad. The son ordered a double-cheeseburger, two sides of fries, and a large Coke. What a punk. I’m sure he was getting paid for this work too.


We finished with the mulch before the meal arrived, but we were short about five bags to make the full fill. The boss’s son picked up the oscillating clippers and cut down last year’s growth of a cut grass stand. It took him longer than it should have and I had to finish what he started as I knew the boss to be quite particular. Then the food arrived.


“Are you guys moving the bush today?” The boss’s wife asked aloud.


“Know where you want it?” The boss asked.


“No. But I can figure that out.”


There below the deck, on the back side of the whole estate, was another rosebush growing at the foot of a deck support column. The boss pointed it out to me while I was eating. Gotta dig it up and move it. Mother’s Day gift. The bush looked ragged; overgrown with dead stems and no blooms. 


The son got on the ground and started plucking dead stems. I had a bit more work to finish on the mulch but a few minutes later, the rosebush pruning was done and the digging needed to commence. The root ball of this thing was massive and it took us about an hour to dig around and dig out. 


At one point, the son got it in his head that he’d dig the thing out himself and grabbed a spade. He made two attempts at prying the bush from the ground before he broke the shovel. What a fuck up. We dropped the broken shovel in the back of the side-by-side and grabbed a new shovel.


As the bush began to pry from the ground, the boss, myself, and his son took to it with our hands. While the boss had one side and I had the other, the son got under the thing and finally pulled it free of its place. One fresh rosebush, ready to be replanted. 


“I think by the playset” The wife called down. “On the South side.”


“Ok.” was the boss’s reply as he looked in my eyes.


“Wanna mark the spot?” The son asked his mother.


“Just all the way to the left on the South side.” She replied.


“Away from the ladder.” The boss added.


Then the boss went to the front of the house, where his shop is, to grab some more tools. It was up to the son and I to load the side-by-side, get everything to the shop, and then get to work planting the bush. As we backed down the lawn, I was glad I was not driving the machinery. The son put the side-by-side into high gear, starting from reverse, and we shot forward suddenly.


Everything in the bed of the side-by-side immediately shifted backward and off the tailgate. He had dumped the load of tools, extra pots, and the rosebush. What a dipshit. When we got back in, after reloading the bed and picking up broken pottery shards, I reminded him that low is a good place to start if he could find it.


We eased up to the shop and unloaded. The son had to explain why the pot was broken to the boss. The boss kind of grinned and let it go. 


“Well, just don’t kill that rosebush.” he said.


We followed him as he walked ahead, us in the side-by-side, approaching the grandkid’s playset. What a thing, the boss had bought it and built it for his own kids when they were little, then moved it to this new house and had rebuilt and rebuilt until it had everything little tikes may need for fun. Now it was getting a rosebush.


The boss lined us out on the job, explained we may hit rock in the digging, and suggested we grab an ax if we hit any roots. Then the son grabbed another shovel and began digging. When he stopped to wipe his brow I took the opportunity to take over shovel duties. No need to break two spades today.


Then I hit something with the head of the shovel. Something too soft to be rock. A root about as big around as my wrist was in the hole. The son didn’t say a word, he just headed back to the shop for an ax. When he returned, I could see the sweat stains in his pits and around his collar. Never knew this one to work hard.


“Yeah,” The son started, “This used to be at my great-grandma’s house.”


“No shit.” Was my working reply.


“Dad dug it up for mom when we were little and planted it here when we moved.”


“An heirloom?”


“Something like that.”


And he kept chunking away with the ax at the ends of the root.


“Seems important to your mom.”“It’s important to my dad because it’s important to her.”


“But we’re doing the work.”


“I wrote her a poem for Mother’s Day. They’re paying me for this.”


Then he pulled the root free of the hole and we were down where we needed to be. I worked the hole with my hands, getting loose fill out, but much of the soil was dense, clay-packed slop that little would grow within. The son then took the side-by-side and some buckets to a pile of soil out in the lawn and filled the buckets up. 


We had the thing backfilled by 1pm. The rosebush had been replanted for Mother’s Day. The son unloaded the side-by-side while the boss and I returned to the back of the house. As we walked off, he was stooping in exhaustion. The boss lined me out on some work pressure washing his back deck.


When I saw the son again, he had showered and changed. Then he and the boss disappeared into the house for a minute. When the boss came back, he confided something which shook me.


“I just needed to see him work.” The boss said, “I’ll pay whatever I have to, just to get him back to work.”


“He worked up a sweat at least.” I replied.


“One of a few.” and then the boss left me to finish my afternoon’s task of cleaning the deck for next week’s staining. I finished before 5pm, and the boss said I did a fine job. He paid me and shook my hand, like he always does, lowered his head and walked back to his home.


From the drive, as I was heading off the property, I spotted the rosebush. It was planted on a sunny, quiet day by a warm, quiet playset, in a world ablaze.




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©2025 by Justin H. Briggs.

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