Lilac Day

Today was lilac day.

I’ve been watching them bud in our backyard. And I’ve been wondering: when will I try to smell a lilac? Lilacs have had a special place with Dane and me, and it’s been a deeply embedded fearful question through our entire cancer journey: What will I do if I ever have to smell a lilac without Dane?

First some back story. For me, I was first introduced to lilacs when my childhood pastor, Bro. Haney, gave my folks a lilac bush many, many years ago. As I think about it, not only did Bro. Haney introduce our family to the art of being a lifelong learner of faith (or at least me, the rest of the family may have already been there), he also introduced us (or at least me) to fine woodworking, bird watching, and lilacs. When he gave us the bush, which was years after he had moved on from our church, he said it would take a few years to bloom. Which it did…most of my high school and college years I think. And then it bloomed. And bloomed. And it introduced me to the compelling fragrance of lilac.

For Dana, her lilac roots go back to her elementary school days near Chicago. On a particular day in the spring the school would have “Lilac Day” and all the students would bring lilac branches and blooms from the bushes in their yards (or acquired surreptitiously from public parks). The entire school would smell of lilac—-for days! Those innocent days of elementary school and a fragrance filled school ingratiated Dana to the compelling fragrance of lilac.

And shortly after we were married and settled into Middletown, we found lilac. We were married in March, and by April we found a park (Sunset, for you Middletown friends) that was lined with lilac bushes. We would drive to the park several times a spring to “take a hit” of lilac. And then 10 years ago we moved to a neighborhood within walking distance of that very park. But bonus upon bonus, our house had MANY lilac bushes, which were unbeknownst to us, having bought the house in the leaf-barren days of late fall! Of course, every spring we still made our trek (by foot, by bike, by van) to Sunset park for the “official” sniff of spring. And this included the spring Dane was first diagnosed with breast cancer 10 yeas ago…the spring we moved to within walking distance of the park, in fact.

And so, every spring of our married life we’ve made some sort of pilgrimage to the park. Since breast cancer round one, it was also our one time to declare something along the lines of: “Alive another year to smell the lilacs.” Even when we weren’t in the middle of a breast cancer battle, we knew we faced uncertainty. We didn’t talk about it much. But when we smelled the lilacs, we let ourselves go there.

And so today, I stopped and took my “official” sniff. It wasn’t planned. It was spontaneous. I had already taken some practice sniffs with the bushes in our yard. I had driven past the park on an errand run and noticed the flowers were about three-fourths bloomed. On my return trip I simply said, “What the heck.” I stopped the van and sniffed.

I’ve learned how to cry-drive, cry-ski, cry-golf (sort of), and cry-talk. But you really can’t cry-sniff. You sort of drown when you combine those activities. So I pretty much took a sniff, and just cried. It was a good cry. And a very sad cry.

Had we actually had an opportunity to process life and death the way Dane and Bear processed everything else, I would have asked “What should I do when I smell a lilac?” I had actually been thinking about that question for a long time. But I can see now it wouldn’t have mattered what Dane might have suggested.

There’s no good teaching point or God stamp moment on this story. It simply stands at face value. I will say, it was good to smell the lilac.

Love to all,
Barry

P.S. I just noticed a new comment on the blog asking how my Sunday morning talk went at the golf event; the comment made me realize I did leave that one hanging. I think things went pretty well. I feel that, despite myself, I said what I was supposed to say (and despite being distracted by my little travel clock I had put on the podium, forgetting the clock was 10 minutes fast!) and received a good portion of gracious encouragement from the folks who were part of the service. In fact, just today I received a note from Dan, the NCCAA director, thanking me for my words and sharing that God was still moving through the words and experience. As an FYI, Dan noted that he saw two deer in the woods off his deck a couple days earlier, saying that he will never look at deer the same since that talk. Also, his wife Kelly sent me a pix from the event showing over 50 pelicans in “gratitude” formation. I love those two people.

I’m up for letting God use this journey however He’d like to use it, if at all. The golf event was a gracious cocoon to help me get to that point.