Perfect Timing

There are smells that, for every person, take him back to a place and time. One of those smells, for me, is the sweet, unmistakable smell of a gardenia. My mother loved gardenias. We had a little gardenia bush in our yard that, when it bloomed, would bring smiles to her face....smiles that were like candy to me.

A few years ago I planted a gardenia bush in my front flower bed...right outside my kitchen window. The first summer I waited and waited for it to bloom. It never did.

I was so excited the following summer when the first tiny white bloom opened up to release that little piece of childhood for me. I cupped it in my hands, closed my eyes, and took a deep breath. For that moment Mama was still alive.....a few steps away in our home..sitting in her chair with her ankles crossed crocheting and laughing with Lori. Vicki was beside me with her bare feet and dirty knees. For as long as I held the scent inside of me, I was there.

Since that first bloom, I have watched many more come and go from my kitchen window.

This year, just as I began to wonder if it would happen, the first little bloom opened its white petals to the sunshine. It happened on a day when my every thought was consumed with motherhood. My heart was full of my children and Jeff as I was once again humbled that God allowed me to be a mother. My heart was also empty, with a longing for a mother who I will never touch again. There was a longing to hear her sweet, childlike voice and to be wrapped in her mother's love. There was a longing to be mothered. It was on this day that my gardenia bush bloomed.

It was Mother's Day.