介绍:
The family had just moved to Rhode Island, and the young woman was feeling homesick that Sunday. It was Mother’s Day—and her own mother was 800 miles away in Ohio.
She had called home that morning to say “Happy Mother’s Day.” Her mother had mentioned how cheery and colorful the yard was now that spring had arrived. And as they talked, the young woman could almost smell the tantalizing aroma of the purple flowers hanging on the big lilac bush just outside her mother’s door.
Later, when she told her husband how she missed those lilacs, he popped right up from his chair. “Let’s go get some. I know where we can find all you want. Get the kids and c’mon.”
So off they went, driving into the sparkling May countryside, up past the small villages and new housing developments, past the abandoned apple orchards back to where trees and brush have devoured old homesteads
Where they stopped, dense thickets of cedars and junipers crowded the roadway on both sides. There wasn’t a lilac bush in sight.
“Come with me,” said the man. “Right Over that hill is an old cellar hole, from somebody’s farm of years ago, and there are lilacs all around it. I know the man who owns this land, and he said I could poke around here anytime. I’m sure he won’t mind if we pick a few lilacs.”
Before they got halfway up the hill, the fragrance of the lilacs drifted down to them, and the kids started running. Soon, the mother was so excited she, too, began running. When she reached the top, she stopped in amazement.
There, far from view of passing motorists, were towering lilac bushes, so laden with the huge, cone-shaped flower clusters they almost bent double. Smiling with delight, the woman ran to the nearest bush and buried her face in the flowers, drinking in the fragrance and the memories it recalled.
While the man examined the cellar hole and tried to explain to the children what the house must have looked like, and where the fields were, the woman slowly drifted among the lilacs. Carefully, she chose a branch here, another one there, and Clipped them with her husband’s pocketknife. She was in no hurry, relishing each blossom as if it were a rare and delicate treasure.
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