Here Comes the Bride

Dear Mom,

Officially it is the first day of spring, but you’d never know it by the weather today. They are talking about snow in the forecast.

I don’t know if you were ever aware of how much I loved the bushes in our yard that made spring seem official, and now I have each kind in my own yard: lilac, forsythia, and spirea—the white variety. The spirea blossom looked like a teeny tiny bridal bouquet—at least in my mind as a child. I would pick the blossom and pretend to be a bride, walking down the isle singing, “Here comes the bride, all dressed in white.” Those were the only words I knew, so I just repeated them over and over. Ruthie and Jeannie would follow behind and we’d take a step, pause, take another step. Little did I know I would be a bride so many times. My husband lovingly jokes, “Always the bride, never the bridesmaid.”

I tell him, “Fourth and final.”

The lilac, forsythia and spirea aren’t in bloom yet, but the hyacinths have unearthed so I took a picture of a few out of the 200 Ruthie and I planted two years ago. They smell as lovely as the lilac.

Mom, thanks for creating the beauty in the yard—I didn’t quite appreciate it the way I do now although I did in my own way… “Here comes the bride, all dressed in white.”