The house I grew up in was built in 1858; it was an attached farm house, with a barn attached to our kitchen. On each side of the barn door were old lilacs -- purple on the right and white on the left. The purple, the larger of the two, was massive and towered over the edge of slate roof. The white one was never as gloriously large but produced reliably, with white puffs of sweet fragrance.
As a kid, I always knew when it was spring because in mid-May, the lilacs bloomed, followed immediately by our lily-of-the-valley. Glorious spring fragrance. In school, they taught us that the purple lilac was the New Hampshire state flower, chosen because it represented "the hardy men and women of New Hampshire" and could live for hundreds of years.
My mother loved our lilacs. She had grown up in the house; her dad had bought it in the 30s. In my mind, lilacs were synonymous with her -- hardy, resilient, tough on the outside but for brief periods of time, showing a surprising softness. That was my mom.
When my brother and I decided we had to sell the house in 2004, it was a gut-wrenching decision. Three generations had lived there. The house along with the lilacs and maples -- had been there since the mid-1800s -- and we had to say good-bye to it.
Before we left, I decided I had to take some of it with me. The soil by the barn turned out -- no surprise -- to be mostly rocks with some soil squeezed between. That the lilacs had not just survived but thrived made me respect them even more. Such tenacity!
But I was able to pry out two scraggly suckers. I worried about the roots but carefully wrapped them in damp paper towels then in a plastic bag for the trip to Massachusetts.
When I got home, I planted them in two places. One got pretty much immediately mowed over by someone who didn't know plants.
And the second... seemed to be in limbo. It didn't die, but it wasn't exactly giving me hope. For two years, it produced a few sad leaves, but that was all. In the third year, it seemed to make a decision. Like Morgan Freeman's quote in Shawshank Redemption: You either got to get busy living or get busy dying. The lilac decided to live. The next few years, it began to grow, really grow, but no flowers. I worried that mine would never bloom.
Finally...finally...one year, there were TWO bunches of blossoms. I was ecstatic. The next year: nothing. Back to gloom.
But then, dear Lord, then.... that next year: my lilac bush was a riot of purple. So many bunches that I couldn't count them. It kept growing, doubling in height. Sending out its own suckers.
SO now, as you have guessed, my lilac is exactly what I knew and loved. A full, glorious lush explosion of color and sweet fragrance, making the bees -- and me -- crazy.
I am beyond words when I go out and spend time with it. Smell -- the most primitive of the senses -- triggers something, that feeling. I get that. I get that and more. It is my mom, clipping dead limbs, snipping a bouquet for the table. It is my grandmother, doing the same. It is me feeling like this flower is the most important flower in the world. And most importantly, it is me: wanting to recreate all of this for myself, not believing I could...but doing it.
Today is Mother's Day. At the Arnold Arboretum, they celebrate the day with lilacs. Lilac Sunday. Today it's raining so few will pack a picnic as they have been doing there since 1908, fifty years after my house was built.
I have a bouquet of lilacs on my dining room table; the room smells like heaven.
And the encore for the day is one I come back to often and probably always will: tenacity. Take the risk; be tenacious. Yes, it's true -- sometimes people will mow over your lilac. But it's also possible that your sucker will sink its roots down into the rocks, find the nutrients buried within and decide to send itself up into the sky. You won't know if you don't try.
Happy Mothers Day!
