No Hiding What The Hyacinth Does

This is a picture of my $4.99 "on sale" after Easter purchase: three beautiful white hyacinth blooms in cheesy yellow paper and a plastic pot. It's my welcomed house guest, sitting on my counter. Her aroma is dancing in every crevice of the downstairs. In every corner. But not just in the house, but in every part of my heart and brain..

"It smells like a funeral home in here", says my husband.

"No it doesn't. It smells like Easter Sunday morning; spring walks through Longwood Gardens; Grammy Allen's pungent perfume; Aunt Myrtle’s dancing thru the hallways with all five of her purses; it smells like the side yard of my childhood home on Dixie Drive; the Philadelphia Flower show; black patent leather shoes; the Wilmington Flower Mart in Rockford Park with the kids; K-Mart's Lawn & Garden section; it smells like Gangy Link's dinner table... and it smells like my life story," I whisper to myself.

"It still smells like a funeral home to me...", he adds.

"No it doesn't. It smells like sweaty runny-nosed children laughing; Pop Pop singing his dumb-ditty songs; Annie's "peety jesses" (pretty dresses); and windows wide open with the stereo blaring. It smells like melted chocolate peanut butter eggs; week-old marshmallow ©Peeps; it smells like sitting in the bleachers watching David's roller hockey games, or the fragrance of crescent roll chicken baking; it smells like Phillies opening day baseball games; fresh cut grass clippings; pot roast simmering in the Crock Pot; Little Tykes plastic toys all over the yard; and my dad’s Honda Gold Wing in the driveway. I think it also smells like singing "Up From The Grave He Arose"; a Sunday School filled with little Bibles and chalkboard dust; a Chevy convertible top-down drive on route 47 to Cape May; eighth grade graduations and proms; little bow ties (that I refuse to let go of); trips to Vineyard Lake in Michigan; school buses with squealing kids and brakes; skateboards and kid-built wooden ramps in the cul-de-sac; neighbors laughing while sitting on their porches; it’s the smell of fresh earth-dirt and me (dressed in my hat, goggles and mask) chasing old Barry with a fired up weed-wacker!”

“It smells like the times in my life when I cried at loss and felt my stomach wrenching while trying to sing at my dad's funeral; it smells like standing motionless in a florist showroom, trying to pick out the right flowers for my mother's services. And yes, it even smells like losing a friend while my heart and heels sank in the soil at the cemetery. That's what hyacinths smell like to me," I whisper under my breath.

"You smell ALL that in those flowers?", he asks.

Yes. I smell it all; the balance, the dance, the death, the joy and new life of - a hyacinth.

2 Corinthians 2:14 "....an aroma redolent with life."