Bridge Encounters: A Rose to Remember

'Don't look now,' I advised my husband and signalled discreetly with a slight nod of the head to a point behind us, 'but there's an old lady leaving a rose between the bars of the bridge.'

I should have known that David wouldn't understand the concept of tact and discretion. His head swung around as if his neck were made of rubber. 'Where? Oh, yeah.'

The woman interwove the stem through three of the wrought iron railings on the side of the bridge.

'So what?' added David.

'I've seen roses left there before and always wanted to know who did it.'

He shrugged a disinterested shoulder. 'Well, now you know.'

He could be so infuriating at times. 'I wonder why? There must be some really romantic mystery behind it.'

'Why don't you go ask her?'

'Don't be silly!'

To my horror, with a goofy grin he grabbed my arm and dragged me towards the woman who stood there for a moment, contemplating the rose and the magnificent view of the sun settling down for the night behind the jagged ridges of the surrounding Ronda Range.

She looked around as we approached and her face shone softly with a serene smile. 'Good evening,' she greeted us.

There was no stopping David's cheekiness. 'Hello. My wife was itching to know why you've left that rose there. She thinks there might be some romantic mystery.'

The old lamps wrapped a warm, yellow light around us as the evening sky cooled from a rich peach colour to deep plum.

'That's alright, dear,' she assured me. 'There's no mystery, though; just a simple love story. This is where I met my husband. We were both very young - sixteen-years-old; we got married at eighteen and shared fifty-nine years together, until he passed away.' Her gaze was momentarily lost in the dark depths of the narrow gorge. 'Not a day goes past that I don't think about my Hugo.'

'Fifty-nine years,' I responded. 'That's amazing.'

'I won't pretend that it was all perfect. We had our difficulties at times, but you know, every month on the twenty-first, he would take me for a walk along the bridge here and give me a rose on this spot, where we met. A simple thing, but it meant a lot to me and he never forgot. Since he died, I've kept the tradition going.' She got out her purse and flipped back a section to reveal a worn, black and white photo of a couple of newlyweds. 'That's me and Hugo on our wedding day.'

'He looks very handsome,' I commented.

'Thank you, dear. Occasionally he could be hard-headed, though.' She sighed. 'Ah, my Hugo: hard-headed, yet soft-hearted.' She leaned in a bit closer towards us, as if about to tell us a secret.

'A rose looks beautiful and smells wonderful. Unfortunately, it has thorns. But that doesn't stop people liking roses. Only when you accept the imperfections in your partner will you encounter true love.'

David had quietly taken my hand and I gave it an appreciative squeeze in return.

The elderly lady was pleased. 'Don't ever stop holding hands. My mother constantly berated me for always holding Hugo's hand - she thought it was silly teenage nonsense. But all throughout the years, even those last days in the hospital, he always reached out to take my hand.'

She took a little step back. 'I really must be off. I don't want to hold you up.' She turned to go, but then waggled an arthritic finger at David. 'Don't wait until St Valentine's Day to give your delightful wife a rose. Any day is a good day to remind her how much you love her.'

'Ok,' he nodded cheerfully.

'Um, aren't you worried someone might take the rose that you left there?' I asked her before she left.

The woman smiled. 'I'd be disappointed if nobody did. Love is the greatest gift you can give.'

The Bridge Encounters are stories set on the Puente Nuevo, a 100 metre high bridge that crosses the gorge running through the beautiful, historic, Andalucian town of Ronda in southern Spain.

If you liked this story, you might be interested in the book, Happy Juice, which invites the reader to discover for themselves what is really important in life.
Happy Juice at Amazon