Signs of Spring

by Donna Poole Title by Laura Cooper

Spring fought hard for the win in Montana this year. It snowed five times in April; we got a foot on the twenty-second. My rows of daffodils bloomed that day in the snow. Stupid things, I hadn’t watered or weeded them in ten years, and still they thrived. They were always the first signs of spring.

“May we all be blessed with the resilience and determination of daffodils.”

I pushed away the thought. I’d had a friend named Lonie who’d liked to say that. Well, my resilience and determination died a long time ago along with my friendships. And so did my fondness for inspirational quotes. And for reading. And for everything else.

This Hal Boreland quote had once been a favorite: “No winter lasts forever, no spring skips its turn.”

Yeah, right, Harold Glen Borland. You never met my heart. Spring has skipped right over it for a decade.

I never realized until my entire family shut me out of their lives what a cold, unforgiving place the world really is. So, I’d been a terrible Christian; I admit that.

Back when I’d still loved my books, I’d read something by C.S. Lewis that stuck with me: “The sins of the flesh are bad, but they are the least bad of all sins. All the worst pleasures are purely spiritual: the pleasure of putting other people in the wrong, of bossing and patronising and spoiling sport, and back-biting, the pleasures of power, of hatred.”

There can be a perverse sort of pleasure in hatred. My family hates me for what I did, but I hate myself more. Part of me understands why they turned away when I begged for forgiveness. My husband moved out of state to try to start over. My children, teenagers then, chose to go with him. As years passed and I realized forgiveness wasn’t coming, I tried to forget that part of my life had ever existed.

Sometimes I’d wake at night, though, thinking I’d heard a voice calling, “Mom!”
Sometimes, when I woke in the morning, my pillow was wet with tears.

What had I done? It doesn’t matter to this story. Was I sorry? Ridiculous question.

I guess you could say I’d repented, though I hadn’t talked to God for ten years. I’d think, now and then, about the Bible story of the Prodigal Son and how his father welcomed him home and smothered his apology in a hug. I knew that story Jesus had told pictured God waiting to welcome me back, but I wasn’t having it.

I tried to stuff all thoughts of God into the icebox that had once been my heart.

Music was my enemy. One song returned to my memories every May with the lilacs; it would have made me cry if I’d let it: “Lord, to my heart bring back the springtime. Take away the cold and dark of sin. Oh, refill me now, sweet Holy Spirit. May I warm and tender be again.”

Every spring the lilacs and that song threatened to crack the ice protecting my heart. I hated them both.

Back home, Mom used to say, “My favorite time of year is when lilacs bloom!” She’d fill every room with vases full of them. During the long, cold winters that followed, she’d say, “My heart still smells spring.”

Lilacs were the scent of my childhood and Mom’s favorite flower. She called them “purple sunshine.” Corny, I know, but sweet. My mother was like that.
She’d bury her face in a bunch of lilacs and say, “The sweet smell of spring. Promise me, honey, you’ll always listen when lilacs speak.”

I’d roll my eyes. “Mom, lilacs don’t talk.”

“They do. They say spring always comes.”

Mothers and Daughters. You know how it is; we weren’t much alike, Mom and I. She lived in the sunshine of God’s love, always sure of his smile. She woke every day certain something wonderful was going to happen. I got out of bed expecting the worst.

I’d been hard on myself as a child. If I’d done something wrong during the day, I’d refuse to eat the ice cream our family enjoyed together each evening. No amount of coaxing from Mom could get me to touch that ice cream I loved.

She’d sigh and say, “Honey, don’t be harder on yourself than Jesus is.”

I grew up to be like Mom in one way, though. Lilacs became my favorite flower. I’d married in May and carried a bouquet of them, burying my face in them after we’d said, “I do,” and my new husband had kissed me.

The lilacs had been in bloom ten years ago when my bitter, disillusioned husband had left me, and the children had gone too. I knew from social media I now had a granddaughter I’d never met, a beautiful child with my mother’s smile. Would my daughter even tell her about me? Would my granddaughter, when she was grown, perhaps want to meet me? I tried not to hope. For me, hope was a four-letter word.

Mom had been right and wrong. Lilacs do speak, but they didn’t say what she’d said they would. Their words were memories tearing me apart. I would have prayed the bushes would die if I’d still prayed.

Spring fought hard for the win in Montana this year, so the lilacs were late, but when they bloomed, it was like nothing I’d ever seen. The blossoms were enormous, and the smell hung so heavy in the air I couldn’t bear to open the windows. Memories threatened to leak out of my eyes. One tear, just one, and I’d be undone.

I had to get rid of those cursed flowers. I dragged the ladder out of the shed and clipped off every lilac. Arms full, I headed for the burn pile, but I thought about Mom and couldn’t do it.
So, I set up cinder blocks in the front yard and laid boards between them. I had dozens of vases stored in boxes; in my other life I’d filled my house with lilacs the way Mom had done. I arranged the flowers in vases, added water, and lined them up on the board with a sign that said, “Free.” I left the boxes there too.

Exhausted, I sat in my lawn chair quite a distance behind the lilacs. I couldn’t wait for someone to stop and take them. I knew I wasn’t being rational, but I thought perhaps if the lilacs left, the memories threatening to win this year, the song wanting to bring back the springtime, the tears trying to come, the prayers struggling for release—maybe all these things would leave with them. I didn’t want spring to thaw my frozen heart. Spring hurts too much.

It didn’t take long for someone to stop. An old man got out of his van and began putting my vases into the boxes. He was taking every single one. I watched him for a time. Then something in me snapped.

Just take everything. This was selfishness! This was people for you! This was me!

What if someone else might like a vase? What if one little girl with her great-grandmother’s smile wanted to give a vase of lilacs to her grandma? And this… old lilac man…was going to take them all. Probably he was going to sell them at the farmer’s market.

You could have heard my voice a country mile away as I charged toward him. I called him every name in the book, names I certainly never learned in Sunday school. He listened quietly to my accusations then slowly began taking the vases from the boxes with trembling hands and putting them back on the board.

“I’m sorry, ma’am. I live in a nursing home where most residents can’t drive. Many never leave their rooms. I thought I’d take the flowers to them, but you’re right of course. I wasn’t thinking of others who might want them.”

I stared at him for a moment. And then I started to cry. The old man patted my back and mumbled comforting sounds like you’d make to a small child. I thought my tears would never stop.

When I finally finished sobbing, he asked, “Can I do anything to help?”

My whole story came tumbling out to this stranger. He didn’t interrupt; he just listened with compassion growing in his eyes.

I finished. “And there you have it,” I said. “The whole rotten story of me.”

He patted my hand. “Do you know about Jesus?” he asked. “When God’s Son died on the cross for us, he did more than gain forgiveness for our sins. He took sin into his heart and made it not to be. For those of us who believe Jesus died in our place, there’s nothing left for us but the sunshine of the Father’s face.”

I nodded and wiped my face. “I’ve believed that since I was a little girl.”

He said something. I was sure I hadn’t heard him correctly. “What did you say?”

“I said, then don’t be harder on yourself than Jesus is.”

And then, I kid you not, in an old, quavering voice, he started singing, “Lord, to my heart bring back the springtime.”

I started crying again, but this time my tears were a prayer. And while I cried, I loaded the vases back into the boxes. All but one.

Lilacs might not be flowering in my heart quite yet, but there were signs of spring. Rows of daffodils were definitely blooming in the snow.

“Mom,” I whispered as the old man continued to sing, “I think maybe my heart still smells spring.”

The old man stopped singing. “Did you say something to me?”

“Do you like quotes?” I asked. And then I shared the Hal Boreland one. He liked it. He liked it a lot.

After he left, I took the last vase of lilacs and got into my car. My friend Lonie had tried to keep in touch, but I’d been ignoring her for a decade. She’d always loved lilacs, and I had taken her some every May. Would she remember? I could only hope.

What would I say when she answered the door? Maybe I’d say, “Hi, Lonie. Spring fought hard for the win.”

The End

Thank you to everyone who contributed title ideas for this story. Laura Cooper won with her title, “Signs of Spring,” but all your ideas were creative!
Even though your ideas didn’t win for title, the following people will find your titles used somewhere in the story: Mark Trippet: “Back Home,” Bill Baker: “The Old Lilac Man,” Joan Russell: “Behind the Lilacs,” Ron Kratz: “When Lilacs Speak,” Peg Ramey: “Would She Remember?” Carolyn Wescott: “Mothers and Daughters,” Susan Blazer: “Purple Sunshine,” Jackie Pearson Pickinpaugh: “My heart Still Smells Spring,” Linda Barvinchak Hackley: “Scent of My Childhood,” Elisa Margarita Eppstein: “When Lilacs Bloom,” and Ruth Kyser: “The Sweet Smell of Spring.”

“May we all be blessed with the resilience and determination of daffodils”.—Lonie Hutchison

One idea in this story came from a true tale Joan Tejkl told me.

I had fun! I hope you did too. Let’s do it again sometime.

Photo Credit: Kimmee Kiefer