Our Lilac Bushes

Before me were a line of lilac bushes around my house which, despite the spring season, were not budding. I had made a slight incision in all the bushes’ bark with my pocketknife to see if there was green beneath the surface, but there was only brown. My suspicions were confirmed; our lilac bushes were dead.

With their scraggly branches reaching up to me, it was like they were skeletons begging me to bring them back from the dead. It was like looking at old or injured pets. They were dying and in pain, and you could tell, but they were still alive. Only, they were truly dead, and their pitiful state was caused by time, not by the owner’s oversight. The ant poison had killed the little invaders, but it also killed the flowerbeds’ homeowners. It had killed my friend’s last gift to me before she had moved to Hawaii.

I sighed, put on my gloves, and looked at the lilac bushes one last time, grabbing the first one. Jessie would understand and she would want me to do this. That didn’t make it any easier though. The branches creaked in protest as I tightened my grip. “Sorry.” I yanked with all my might, and the lilac bush’s roots ripped from the ground. Dirt clods hung in their roots and some fell onto the ground. Tossing the bush aside, I went for the next one, and then the next one, each yank quick and painful, until all of them were put down.

The flowerbeds now empty with nothing but disheveled dry soil, I went to work dumping nutrient-rich black soil into the flowerbeds, adding compost for good measure. After evening out the dirt with a rake, I planted the lilac flower seeds along the front of my house and watered them. It wasn’t the same. We had planted the first seeds together. Now I planted the second batch by myself. This new batch wouldn’t be ours so much as mine. I stuffed the lilac bush skeletons into a garbage bag and laid them to rest in the garbage can.

When I told Jessie about what had happened, she was a little sad, but she did look forward to the new lilacs growing. She must’ve wanted to make me feel better because she recounted all the gardening mishaps she’d gone through, from not watering her plants enough to crazy armadillos scattering seeds before giving me some quick tips for growing lilacs, and our laughter filled my little house with light and warmth. This made me think that in a way, the new lilacs would be ours as much as the former ones were.

Every day, I would look at the flowerbed, checking for a green sprout, and every day, there was nothing. Maybe I had made a mistake. Maybe I had inadvertently cut our former plants’ life short and should’ve waited a few more weeks. Perhaps they would’ve had a better chance than the seeds I had planted in their stead. But one day, when I walked beside the empty flowerbeds outside my house, I saw it, on the black canvas, a tiny splash of green. I smiled. I would send a picture of it to Jessie.