When my father sold the family home after her death I found the rusty trowel in the garage, dug
a few from the front yard and dropped them into a plastic bag. We lived on Willow Drive back then and when I openly wished for a willow tree for the front yard I only heard no, it will damage the lawn. Yet we had grape hyacinths in abundance. Everywhere. My bagful survived the night, a four hour car ride, and I planted them at my new home.
In early spring when dreams are full and the air, too, is full of promise, splayed leaves give way to tree-like stems of purple spheres. They spread their embroidery further every year, but mom’s enthusiasm waned when brown seedy stems sowed next year’s hope all over the grass. The showy blanket before her eventually became more than she could bear knowing how it would end.
With her flowered apron over her skirt, she planted each tiny bulb in the garden and said with a wry smile to wait for spring. She loved beauty. The china cabinet displayed her mother’s dishes and opera played in the background as she worked to stretch the groceries to feed a family of seven. Eventually only disappointed dreams spun in her head, and the wishes for children, a richer husband, and a better house, gave her hope until they didn’t.
No wonder she didn’t go to bed with my father for years after their fifth child. Gin in the weary afternoon and fear of a sixth kept her in a corner of the sofa with old movies and a whiskey and ginger ale as she fell asleep every night.
The grape hyacinths, brought from the soil of my childhood home grow wide and unrestrained and I choose to see my young mother’s eyes, hopeful and happy. I breathe in the spring newness of violet and green and cradle the irony of invasive beauty toward my own home. Later, I brutally pull some stems from the lawn to toss into the woods so that a few will take root elsewhere.
K.H.S.
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