You know how spring can be, balmy one day, chilly the next. That's how the last few weeks have been for me. Life is showing all its facets, from sweetest joys to bitterest pain, shifting back and forth so swiftly that I hardly have time to react. A few of the ups and downs: a disturbing letter from a once-upon-a-time friend listing my faults, two unexpected Mother's Day gifts in the mail, a son describing his worries as suffocating, the arrival of a hoped-for blog invitation from a clever grandson, a bout with asthmatic bronchitis, the approach of the first anniversary of Jordan's passing, and the blooming of one of the lilacs we planted last spring in his honor. I love that baby purple lilac, and marvel at its tenacious hardiness. I want to be just like it, unaffected by winter's snows, steadfastly blooming each spring, bringing comfort or joy to as many places as I can. This year, we will clip the blossoms from the little lilac, placing a few on our dining room table and taking the rest to grace Jordan's grave. I like to think of there being more and more blossoms each year, sharing them with an ever widening circle of friends. A little more delicate than the purple, the white lilac is just starting to bloom, a true symbol of hope for good things yet to come.
If anyone has a special lilac recollection or story, please share it with me. I want to immerse myself in lilacs for a little while, trying to crowd out some of the poignancy of last year's memories.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Lilacs to the Rescue
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3 comments:
Sorry no lilac story, but it's a beautiful little plant and happens to be my favorite smell (oh and lavendar)! What a nice way to remember him. Best wishes!
Dear Bonnie, When I was first married we lived in an old farm house across from L's grandparents adn his great grandmother, Ilearned alot form those sweet little ladies. I had never seen lilac bushes till moving to Utah and Il ove them, but one day Grandma B and I were tot ake a meal inot a sick niehbior anand she did a choc. cake, she baked it in a 9X13 pan and then cut that in half and frosted it and added the other half as the top layer and frosted it, then she put fresh lilacs from her garden all around the cake on the plate, I thought was the most beautiful choc. cake I had ever seen, so when I see lilacs today I think about service to others and G'ma B's sweet loving ways, she seemed very pioneerish to me her mother was 104 and she was in her 80's and very graciuos.
My story is more of a memory. In my childhood home my Mother had a beautiful Liliac bush. I didn't pay too much attention to it, except when my Mom would point out how much she loved it in the Spring. Then I got married and started my own famiily. When we would visit my Mom in the spring I finally began to realize how much I loved that Liliac smell and the beautiful flowers. I begged Kent for one and several months after he planated it, he accidently ran over it with the lawn mower (insert frowny face here). I still love liliac bushes in the Spring. Wow, that was a long memory!
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