My mother sent me flowers today.  It was the first time in my life that my mother has sent me flowers.  She sent them for my birthday.  What happened was this…I had spent the week talking about how much I love purple tulips.  We were talking about my green thumb.  I have lots of houseplants.  They just flourish for me.  People give me their dying houseplants and I resurrect them.  However; when it comes to blooming plants (especially purple) I have no luck!  My grandmother had a beautiful lilac bush in her backyard.  The rent house we had when the kids were little also had a big lilac bush in the back.  Each spring when the lilacs would bloom the intoxicating smell would just fill the house.  It is a memory that I can’t get out of my head…I also can’t reproduce it.

When my grandmother passed away my older sister dug some of the lilac bush out of the ground to preserve it and now has it growing in her yard.  When I told her how much I had loved the smell of lilacs, she offered to dig up some of granny’s lilac and give it to me.  I readily accepted.  It took me two years, but I finally killed it.  I grieved for a year, and then told her what had happened.  She dug up another piece for me and I killed it too.  After that I had a friend give me a piece of a white lilac (it is supposed to be more hardy).  My friend told me not to give up, that it normally takes from three to five years from the time it is planted for a lilac to bloom.  Well, the white lilac was hardier.  It lasted three years before it died.  It would have probably bloomed that spring.  I tried once more…I bought a purple lilac at the nursery and had the yardman plant it for me.  It would have been four this summer, but the ice storm damaged the pear trees that stood beside the lilac bush and when they removed the trees they removed the broken trees they pulled up the undamaged lilac bush as well.  Thanks so much Golden Rule Tree Removal.  I’m Done.  At least with lilacs. I was telling mom that I had no better luck with my favorite flower, purple tulips.  The only way I can get purple tulips is to buy them for myself in the spring.  I planted a mixed bunch of tulip bulbs in the backyard and each and every tulip that came up was yellow.  I asked the yard man to plant mixed tulips in the front flower bed, with the express wish that some of the bulbs be purple, and each tulip was red.  The only way I can get purple tulips is to buy my own.

This is no longer true.  My mom heard me complain, and she sent me purple tulips.  She will remember too.  She always does.  From now on, on any gift giving occasion when she can get purple tulips she will.  I’m okay with that too.  They are sitting on the kitchen table, so spring like and happy.  They just make me feel like all of the cold weather is almost over and spring is just around the corner, even if it is thirty degrees outside and they are predicting snow tomorrow.  Each time I walk by the table I take a second to look at their silky little heads reminding me that soon the warmer weather won’t come and go…it will come and stay.  I just can’t wait.  It seems I finally complained to the right person and this year I didn’t have to buy my own tulips.  Of course, I will still have to hear about the snow storm that occurred in 1960 and how spoiled I became because of it…but it was totally worth it.