I have several lilacs here on my property, and they are among my favorite of flowers. I always associated the white lilac with Lila; when I have my land and can scatter the ashes of my loved ones I will scatter hers on a white lilac bush.

The day I took her dear, still little body in for cremation I picked a bunch of the flowers and brought them along.

Lila made her journey two years ago May 26. And this year, we have had the strangest of springs; everything got warm very early, and flowers sent up shoots far too soon - I had crocuses in full bloom early in April, when normally there is still a significant blanket of snow. but subsequent return to normal seasonal temperature killed off everything - we've had no lilacs, the forsythia opened and shut in two days, ditto the Kwanzan cherry tree, the chokecerry and the apple blossoms. Trumpet flowers and wigelia (sp?) hanging in..but alas, no lilacs, they started to bud and then died in the ridiculous snow we had suddenly a few weeks back.

Except for May 26.
As I spend a fair part of every death anniversary in communion and remembrance, I spent time with Lila that day, this little dog who had changed my life so deeply and taught me more about spirit than any book I've ever read...lit a candle on the shrine where I keep ehr ashes, played memorial music. It was late in the day and I was sitting out back when a strange bird cry caused me to turn my head quickly and strain to look in a westerly direction. And then i saw them; the one lilac bush, the white one, struggling under the branches of my magnificent white pine, had burst into full blossom. just that day, and just the white one.

the next morning I cut them all down and put them in a vase in my room, beside her ashes.Their powerful, gentle fragrance filled the upstairs, and for me it is a scent filled with love, optimism, sweetness in life and love that is stronger than physical death.

One thing I know, in a world that offers us so little certainty about anything; love never dies. It is never lost or forgotten. Lila was celebrating her bond with me on the other side, as I spent my day thinking of her.
And the flowers sang to us both.