[00:05.63]The family had just moved to Rhode Island, and the young woman was feeling a little melancholy on that Sunday in May.
[00:12.38]After all, it was Mother’s Day — and 800 miles separated her from her parents in Ohio.
[00:18.37]She had called her mother that morning to wish her a happy Mother’s Day,
[00:22.50]and her mother had mentioned the colorful yard filled with purple lilacs.
[00:26.97]Later, when she mentioned to her husband how she missed those lilacs, he popped up from his chair.
[00:33.06]“I know where we can find you all you want,” he said, “Get the kids and come on.”
[00:37.87]So off they went. Before they got halfway up the hill, the fragrance of the lilacs drifted down to them,
[00:45.05]and the kids started running. Soon, the mother began running, too, until she reached the top.
[00:51.58]There were the towering lilac bushes, so laden with the huge flower clusters.
[00:57.56]Carefully, the young woman chose a sprig here, another one there.
[01:02.13]Finally, they returned to their car for the trip home.
[01:05.51]When they were within three miles of home, she suddenly shouted to her husband, “Stop the car. Stop right here!”
[01:12.91]The man slammed on the brakes.
[01:15.09]The woman went out of the car and hurried up a nearby grassy slope with the lilacs still in her arms.
[01:21.63]At the top of the hill was a nursing home and the patients were outdoors strolling with relatives or sitting on the porch.
[01:28.48]The young woman went to the end of the porch, where an elderly patient was sitting in her wheelchair, alone, head bowed.
[01:36.33]Across the porch railing went the flowers, into the lap of the old woman.
[01:41.66]She lifted her head, and smiled.
[01:44.28]For a few moments, the two women chatted, both aglow with happiness, and then the young woman turned and ran back to her family.
[01:52.99]“Mom,” the kids asked, “who was that?Why did you give her our flowers?”
[01:58.54]The mother said she didn’t know the old woman.
[02:01.70]But it was Mother’s Day and she seemed so alone.
[02:05.07]“Besides,” she added, “I have all of you, and I still have my mother, even if she is far away.
[02:12.81]That woman needed those flowers more than I did.”
[02:16.09]The next day the husband purchased half a dozen young lilac bushes and planted them around their yard.
[02:22.43]I was that man. The young mother was, and is, my wife.
[02:27.02]Now, every Mother’s Day our kids gather purple bouquets.
[02:31.62]And every year I remember that smile on a lonely old woman’s face, and the kindness that put the smile there.
