Mother's Lilac

I call this Mother's Lilac

But perhaps I should call it my lilac

For it's great great grandmother

grew outside the bedroom window

of the apartment my parents lived in

when I was born.

Before I was a year old, the perfume of this lilac's ancestor

perfumed the night air as it's fragrance wafted in and over my crib!

It's an old fashioned lilac

I'm sure it has a "real name" but I'm not sure what it is.

The very same lilac can be found in abandoned farm yards

For often that was one of the first thing a farm wife would do,

get a start of a lilac and plant it in the corner of the yard!

It's been here 20 years

And most years it does bloom

(the years it doesn't is because we had a frost, killing the blossoms)

Mother would never let me have a start as much as I begged.

"You'll kill it" she always said.

So the year that we lost her, before we sold the house, I dug up a start

and planted it between the drives at Linderhof.

The very next year, it bloomed.    Just one blossom.

But I figured that bloom was Mother's way to tell me that she was happy

that "her" lilac would continue to grow.

My parents moved from that apartment when I was five,

And a start was planted in the garden of our new house.

We didn't live there all that long, but when we moved to the ranch house in the

suburbs, a start moved with us.

Just one each time -- mother wasn't greedy!

And I yearned for a start of that lilac.

For although I call it Mother's, I think of it as mine!

The flowers are perfection

And the aroma is heavenly

I don't cut all the blossoms for I love the smell of lilac whenever I go outside.

The lilac has some "starts" around the base.

One is going north on our next trip to visit Daughter Sarah

and her girls.

A fourth generation will be able to enjoy this humble lilac.