Lilacs.

The very first time I saw this house, I knew it was where we were supposed to be. The structure itself on the outside reminded me of the house I grew up in.... that quiet little street in Woodhaven where most of the homes there in the 1950s had front porches and green lawns.

When I was a kid in that house up north, our backyard had lilac bushes. They would be bursting with purple blooms in the Spring and my dad would trim the branches and wrap up the flowers and their green oval leaves in tin foil so I could take them to school. The nuns would use the lilacs to decorate the altar in the church. We had so many lilac bushes that the church altar, as well as the small side altars near the saints' statues, were covered in lilacs for weeks on end.

At the last house my husband and I lived in, one of the neighbors had white lilac bushes growing... their aroma was carried on warm Spring breezes and when I was walking with Gracie I could smell the lilacs as soon as we got to our corner. But those flowers were white, not purple... lilacs still, but just not the same.

This is our third Spring in this big old hundred-year-old house. We have walked around every inch of the property surrounding the house, the cottage, the garage, the barn. My husband has walked every inch of our fields, checking the bluebird boxes, the creek at the back of the woods, and he knows every inch of the pond, inside and out.

We have pecan trees, plum trees, palms, and live oaks... rose bushes and red-tip bushes, mesquite trees and crape myrtles. There are day lilies that pop out in the Spring, along with a few hyacinth and snow drops. And wildflowers.... 38 different varieties of wildflowers on our property, at my last count. But today... on this windy day with a temperature that dropped from 80 to 60 overnight and will soon be back up near 80 again... out in the backyard behind the cottage and near the fence going out into the pasture..... there is a lilac bush. A lilac bush! That little bush has been growing a little bit each year we've been here, but it was always filled with green leaves... no blooms.... and I didn't even know it was a lilac bush. It was just always there.... during the drought, my husband watered that bush when he was watering the pecan trees.

This afternoon, I went out back to check on the chickens and look for eggs in the coop. PittyPat laid one of her pale blue eggs and I went into the yard to say Thank you for the pretty egg! and as I did that, the explosion of purple lilacs couldn't be missed. I walked towards that bush and I was saying out loud "Those can't be lilacs....." But they were. I was out in the yard yesterday... and the day before... and every other day before that..... either I didn't look in that direction or the blooms popped out all at once this morning, which I seriously doubt.

This past Wednesday, the 22nd, was my dad's birthday.... he passed away in 2008.... he would have been 93 this year. I'm letting myself believe that the lilacs started to bloom on Wednesday... then yesterday they were a little more pronounced... and today, they were just bursting and exploding and begging to be seen.

Part of me thought it would be nice to cut some of the lilacs and bring them to a church, and ask them to put the flowers on the altar. But then another part of me didn't want these lilacs going too far away from here. I cut some of the branches and put them in a vase. I have them here on my desk where I can see them. Tomorrow, I will go outside and cut more branches, and put the blooms into vases around the house. Without a doubt, whenever I go into the yard, my eyes will be drawn now to that particular spot, to see how the lilac bush is doing in whatever kind of weather we're having.

If there ever was a doubt that this house was 'meant to be,' that doubt was dispelled when I saw those lilacs blooming this afternoon. What a wonderful surprise... a beautiful gift. Happy birthday, Daddy.