If it's true, it probably had thorns on the stem.
"he placed a rose in her hand and kissed her goodbye."
Sounds nice. But weren't her hands totally contracted through his insistance of her recieving no therapy at all?
When a nurse tried to put a cloth in to ease her contractures he yelled at her. and made her take it out - he insisted this simple comfort measure was therapy, and he didn't want her to have any.