Sweet Memories

 

(I had to use an abbreviated version of the Salix discolor, because blog did not like the common name).

 

When the p.willows bloom in the Spring I think of my mother. I’m very fond of them, and I know it’s because she had many good memories associated with them from her childhood. After reading about her family’s summer home on Diamond Lake last week, I imagine that there must have been a bush growing on the property somewhere. I can just see my grandmother, Clara Konvalinka, taking 18-month-old “Baby June” by the hand and walking slowly down the hill toward the low lying part of the lawn where five huge weeping willows hung out over the lapping waves. There in the moist soil, a tall silvery p.willow was sure to blossom around the first day of spring, give or take a week depending on the weather. When I close my eyes, I see her reach up and snip off a single branch of catkins to rub against June’s cheeks. Surely that is when the first memory was made.
      There’s so much my mother didn’t tell us about her past or maybe I was too distracted as a child to hear. I feel as though she kept all of her childhood experiences stored – like hidden treasure – in her heart. We lived only blocks from Diamond Lake, and yet I didn’t realize just how special her childhood was there. Maybe those days became sweeter the older she grew. I know how she felt, because some of the things that meant so much to her – life’s simple pleasures like p.willows, are becoming more precious to me the older I grow as well.
My mother gave me an appreciation for the changing seasons–including rituals of discovery that we enjoyed together. In the springtime there was always a quest to find a spot where the p.willows were abundant and free for the taking. When we first came to live on this farm seven years ago, it was the middle of summer–very hot as I recall. Anna was three-months-old and I didn’t get to explore the property as much as I would have liked. As I was driving down the road the following spring, I saw a sign at a nursery that read, p.willows for sale $3.00 a bunch.” I bought some for myself and some for our landlady Mrs. Kraft. “Oh, are those from down at the end of the drive?” she asked. I was so surprised. I didn’t know any grew on the property. From that point on we made it a habit to take advantage of p.willows, “growing abundantly” and “free for the taking,” and every year…the memory becomes sweeter.