Lilacs

When we first moved to Colorado it was March which meant there was snow on the ground. Brian had bought the house with me only having seen it via the internet so I had no true idea as to what it looked like. Within a few days of moving here I flew with my 9 year old and 6 month old to Alaska to be with my Mother who, for those who don't know, had been diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer in February.

It's a good guess that I didn't pay much attention to my house. I didn't really care about it because I was worried about my new baby, and my move from Tucson to Colorado and finding a job and helping my 9 year old adjust and oh yeah, my mother dying.

I especially didn't care about my back yard. I could see it was large from my sliding glass doors in the kitchen but that was about all I cared about.

But I noticed it for the first time on Mothers Day of that year, 2005. I was in the kitchen and the radio was playing. It played a song called "No One Will Ever Love Me (that way again)" by Rebecca Lynn Howard. I had never heard the song before and it caught me off guard because it was about a Mother's love and reduced me to a sobbing mess. You see, I knew already that it was my Mother's last Mothers Day even though everyone around me either wouldn't acknowledge it or didn't believe it.

I sat at my dining room table crying my eyes out while my then husband sat across from my helpless but trying to comfort me. I looked up from the table when a familiar scent grabbed me and for the first time that spring I looked outside my kitchen door. There, in bright bloom with a strong lilac smell was this huge purple lilac tree to the side of the house.

I believe in signs and I believe that signs tell me when I'm on the right or wrong track and for me this was a STRONG sign. You see, while Iris's were my mothers favorite flower, she loved lilac trees. One of her boyfriends after she and my father divorced had once given her a lilac tree as a gift (I can't remember why now) but sadly Alaska wasn't the place for lilacs. I know she kept it in that pot for awhile but I think it eventually just succumbed. She may have planted it but it never grew, it's hard to say for me know, over 20 years later. I just remember her loving them.

Since that spring in 2005 my lilac tree has never really thrived or bloomed like it did that year. My Mother in law tells me it's because we've had so many late freezes in the years since and it just does a number on the lilacs.

This year though the winter was mild. This morning I took this picture:

Right before I came down stairs to write this post I stood at my kitchen door and looked at my backyard. It's very different from when I first moved in but one thing this year was very much like that first year.

I can smell the lilacs again.

Happy Mothers Day Mom.