Print Issue: September 19, 2002

Roses Of Remembrance Bloom At St. Ann's

By Gretchen Keiser, Staff Writer

MARIETTA - The roses bloom near St. Ann's Church one year after Sept. 11, red and white, for Michael Gann. The garden on the church grounds was started with donations two years ago, to memorialize the mother of staff member Mary Ann Fischer. Now it has a new row, Fischer said, "the Mike Gann row."

Speaking of roses is a way of touching lightly upon the inexplicable facts of life: losing those we love the most and finding that sun and rain still come and that earthly beauty still endures. It can be painful. It can, in time, be healing.

Gann, 41, who was planning to become a Catholic, had met with Fischer, head of the Christian initiation program, and shared his deep faith in Christ with her and other people at St. Ann's. But before he could complete this spiritual journey, he was killed in the World Trade Center, leaving behind his wife, Robin, three children and two stepchildren. Working in risk management sales for Algorithmics, a Toronto-based company, he was attending a conference on the 106th floor of the World Trade Center.

His memorial Mass was celebrated at the parish last October.

A rose garden at St. Ann Church, Marietta, is one of the living reminders of Michael Gann, 41, who was killed at the World Trade Center. The roses were given by the Christian initiation class that he was a part of as he prepared to join the Catholic Church. (Photo by Michael Alexander)

Among the gifts brought to the altar were a guitar, a drill and a pair of shoes, symbolizing his talent as a musician, singer and poet, his love of working on projects around the home, and his ongoing spiritual journey.

A passionate rose gardener, who has 90 bushes at her home, Fischer said when her mother, Marie Schmitt, died, she asked for memorial donations to start the parish garden. That led to 24 rose bushes being planted.

Then after Sept. 11, 2001, "when Mike died, I asked the OCIA to contribute a row. That is the Mike Gann row."

She is the caretaker, and roses are a demanding row to hoe.

Inexplicably as the red and white rose bushes in "the Mike Gann row," ordered from a professional supplier, have grown, one has turned out to be pink.

"That is very unusual. I can't account for that," Fischer said. "How that happened is either how they are meant to be - or we are going to have to take it out and replace it!"

A gray stone wall serves to set off the rose garden. It "was kind of symbolic of the World Trade Center. It seemed to fit in that place," she said.

Perhaps the reason roses are so powerful a symbol of love and even of spiritual graces is because their beautiful flowers and aroma are only given if they receive daily attention and care.

"Roses like a constant provider-somebody that is really going to be there to water every other day," she said, laughingly. "Roses take literally daily care. I always think of the line from 'The Little Prince': When you love something, you become responsible for it."

Maybe that investment of coaxing, caring, "taking off the yellow leaves and cultivating them" turns into a sort of a relationship.

"The whole sense when I am here working in the garden, I have a sense almost of the presence of the person," Fischer said. "It is a very personal thing."

She hopes roses, in a prominent place at the parish, are a fragrant reminder of Gann, of her mother, and beloved people.

"They keep you focused on a life that is no longer with us, but a life that is ongoing . . . I think it will continue to be a reminder to all of us that there was a light - that will be lighting up another part of the universe."

She is also struck by the rightness of the fact that a garden begun in memory of one person "is becoming a combination garden."

"I think that is a good thing. We live our lives in community."

The morning of Sept. 11, 2002, she went out to the rose garden, which has been stressed by the heat and drought this summer.

"There is a rose called Peace, yellow with tones of peach in it. It is a beautiful rose, one of the most popular. I was hoping it would be in bloom for this day - and it is. Despite all the heat we've had, it is in big blooms today."