The Lilacs

September 28, 2013 1646

My grandparents with me at Faros.

            I remember the lilac bushes around her front porch.  They were purple and white, but mostly purple.  I have always loved the smell of lilacs.  Here in Florida lilacs do not grow.  There is a nice smelling impostor, but to those of us who have experience of the lure of a lilac know it smells just a smidgen differently.

            My cousins and me would play every Sunday while the entire family gathered in the garage and ate all the good cooking.  The one thing my family does well is eat.  The porch was surrounded almost completely with bushes, trees, and lilacs like a secret garden.  I have countless hours of play on that porch.  I think of the lilacs every time I drive by the old house.  When my grandpa died my grandma moved out of the house.

            I have had thirty years of wonderful memories since that house with my grandma, but that house holds lilacs, family, food, and memories like very few places in my past.  I remember writing mystery stories with my cousin.  I remember picking rhubarb and making rhubarb pie with my grandma.  All of us sat on her counter and ate bowls of graham crackers and milk.  I remember playing hide and seek in her boiler room and putting on plays for all of the adults in the basement.  I remember my grandma fondly.

            Over the years I have travelled farther and farther away from those lilacs, but I think of her every time I smell lilacs.  I think about the way she would crinkle up her nose and smile from across the room.  That crinkle was the same as a kiss or a hug.  She passed that onto my father; He too crinkles his nose. (So does The Goat Man, but he doesn’t like it when I tell him how much he is like my daddy.)

            There are stories I could tell you about being left in a pumpkin patch and going to pick out the tigers.  I could talk about her brownies or the fact that she spent most of her life worrying.  But, I think she is explained best when I simply say she is my grandma.  She was “grandma” to my friends, my children, and everyone she met.

            My mother called me yesterday to give me an update since she went into the hospital almost a week ago.  She has been moved to the cardiac care unit and developed pneumonia.  She turned 92 years old on August 3^rd.  I have smelled lilacs since that phone call.

            I am an adult and I understand that sometimes life is down right rotten, but I still fight back the tears that come when I realize I don’t have the money to go home.  I don’t have the money to go tell her I love her.  I don’t have the money to go home for her funeral when they lay her next to my grandfather.

            I cannot hold her hand and tell her to quit worrying.  I can’t crinkle my nose for her…