From the Rose Garden – October 1998

It’s autumn, a time to look at and recognize changes.

God’s natural wonders, like the changing seasons, are all around us. Even your backyard gardening slows down, giving you time to begin new experiences and time for the land to replenish its natural life giving resources.

The Michelle Goffe Rose Memorial Garden has been experiencing changes too. Most prominent are the strong, healthy rose branches that have been winding their way up the side of the metal arch entry. Perhaps you have walked along the crusher fine paths that align this first quadrant, and have seen for yourself the variety of rose petal colors. Summer planting of roses, shrubs, and flowers have filled the empty spaces in each section of the garden’s first quadrant.

The beauty to this first quadrant could not have been made possible without your partnership and the fellowship of the YMCA. The continued generous donation of your volunteer time, and labor are needed to maintain this first of four quadrants. By financially supporting this endeavor, the garden will perpetuate, so that in time each of these four partials of land will blossom. Every addition to the garden adds beauty, and speaks of your commitment to the perpetuation of Life.

Following the sudden and untimely death of our daughter Michelle, our family longed for a project that would help to keep Michelle’s spirit alive. The garden has become that comforting place where we can quietly sit and mediate, and lovingly remember our deceased daughter.

It can serve as your place to honor a person, to celebrate a life cycle event, to experience tzedakah, to understand the words "Tikkun Olom." It can be a place for your own spiritual connection to a deceased loved one and with God. A belated La Shanah Tova to you all!. May you each find the Jewish New Year of 5757, a year of good health and enriching new experiences.

Sylvia Goffe

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