In June 1993, my mother and I travelled to Rockport, Massachussetts, for a few days of rest. My mother was recovering from cancer treatment and longed to see the ocean again.

Rockport is an idyllic village by the Atlantic shore, an artists mecca thirty miles north of Boston. My parents discovered the quaint area known as Cape Ann when I was a baby, and they were charmed by the miniature beaches and eclectic boutiques, the art galleries, historic inns and seafood restaurants.

All through the winter months as I grew up in Montreal, my mother and father would promise me, and later my sister, a summer trip to Rockport. Since 1953, its landscape has drawn us. My family took two week summer holidays then extra trips were added throughout the year: long weekends at Thanksgiving, a few days at Christmas, a few more in the spring.

When my mother invited me to go on a trip, just the two of us, this meant sharing special times together, away from our everyday routine. Some of my best memories are of walking barefoot on Cape Hedge beach at sunset, my mother’s favorite time of day. We liked to dine at Folly Cove Inn restaurant, where they served cormeal bread and rolls  in a basket, and from the huge windows, we could watch the seagulls dive for their meal in the waves.

There were also pleasant hours spent shopping in the quaint boutiques and galleries on the historic wharf named Bearskin Neck. At one quay sat the red fisherman’s shack known as Motif No.1 captured in numerous, and some dubious, oil paintings hung the local galleries. We also took day trips to the town of Concord, less than an hour away, where we could visit Orchard House, the home of Louisa May Alcott and her Little Women.

We were glad to travel in early June when the weather was warm and not frying, and the boisterous tourists hadn’t arrived yet. It would be restful for my convalescent mother.

We hadn’t imagined how transformed Rockport would be in that flowering season: we found it a bower of wild roses, a hanging basket at the edge of the Atlantic ocean. We had never seen it so beautiful and fragrant, and for three sun-filled days, my mother drove up and down the quiet streets from one end of the village to the other, and I snapped photo after photo. I had remembered to bring my 35 mm camera this time, and I was glad I had, for the wild roses were plentiful and extraordinary.

Some of the most breathtaking were in front of a tiny colonial cottage with thick bushes of red and pink blossoms. I aksed my mother to stop the car. I read the plaque by the blue door and learned that this was Hannah Jumper’s house. She was famous in Rockport and had a popular restaurant named after her on Bearskin Neck.

Hannah was remembered for leading a group of sixty or so local ladies, later known as the Hatchet gang, through the village in revolt against the excesses of alcohol consumption among the men. Rockport is still dry since that fateful day of July 8, 1856.

While my mother grew stronger that holiday, I nursed a mysterious sore throat that was diagnosed a few months later as cancer. It was a stressful time but the vivid memories of our trip soothed my mind like rose petals. As I lay in the hospital bed, the photos I had taken helped me to visualize myself back in Rockport. I closed my eyes and recalled the flowery scent mixed with the salty air, powerful as a tonic or elixir. I saw again the luscious red and pink roses against the white picket fences, and the pewter grey sea beyond the clapboard houses.

This had a healing effect. I look forward to my next trip to Rockport, and the drive along Eden Road that skirts the ocean, and so does my mother.