A Dozen Red Roses

"How did I meet you?" He asked. His face clearly aged spoke the words in a feeble voice, seeking a sincere answer to his heart breaking question.
"Honey," she replied to her husband of 96, " you wrote me a letter. Do you remember?"
He laughed at the ludicrous memory. "No... I don't think I can remember. Tell me again."

He had written her a letter at 73 years, a good friend of his knew her and had recommended he get in touch with her, a kind widow of 45. She received the letter in her mailbox at the Girls Dorm at Mt. Ellis Academy, but caught up in work she placed it in her desk where it was neglected. Two weeks later she flew to College Place, WA to visit her daughter for Mother's Day weekend where she received a call from him, in her daughters dorm room. He said he would meet her at the vespers program and that he would be in a blue blazer with his hair parted down the center. They met in the Walla Walla College gym in May 1987, his blue blazer and hairless part down the center of his head.

The next time they spoke she had told him she would not be in her office to answer his phone call because she would be at camp meeting in Provo, Utah. The weekend of camp meeting he drove from his house in Escondido, CA to see her again. Before they left Utah he asked her if she could have anything, for the rest of her life, what would it be? She told him she would like to have fresh flowers in her house every friday to welcome the Sabbath. They left from there and kept in touch. She received a dozen red roses the next Friday, and many, many more Fridays after their wedding 5 months later, in October 1987.

His memory is fading. The fresh aroma of roses no longer fills the house on Friday afternoons.

With out any recollection of our happiest memories can we know who we are? Is it possible to know who we are without knowing the path that brought us here? And so he asks again.