Has anyone else had a forgotten memory surface after smelling something? For me, the smell of lilacs in the summer drags up an odd recollection indeed. The year is 2002, and the sweet smell of lilacs surrounded me as the summer breeze dance among the purple-white flowers above me, their tendrils dancing in the wind. I’m lying on my back in the scratchy grass near my grandfather’s old, but well maintained barn—painted a rust red. The sun is slowly making its way beyond the horizon, leaving the sky a mix of darkness and shades of red, orange, and purple. Strands of clouds float far above, driven like cattle by the winds at higher altitudes. It’s peaceful. I spent almost every summer in high school out on the farm with my grandfather, a gruff, green thumbed and silver tongued old man with smile wrinkles as deep as a desert dune. A perfect memory of a nice summer day, no?
Something always feels odd about it, though. The grass is scratchy, but in a searching way. The lilacs hanging from the boughs above me dance in strange rhythms, moving in wind I cannot feel. And my grandfather stands just out of eyesight, staring intently at the sun as it dips slowly out of sight.
My grandfather recently passed away, at the exceedingly ripe old age of 109, though he hated talking about it—he was very fond of the idea that it was the life in your years that counted, not the number of years. Living through all that he did—two world wars, the end of segregation, the moon landing—all the twists and turnings of a century of human civilization. A monument of a man, and a well regarded member of his little slice of society.
In the latter half of his life, he began growing and tending to the lilac trees I mentioned earlier. They were a bit different from other lilacs, although I couldn’t really tell why—they looked the same, felt the same, smelt mostly the same (a bit of spice to them, if that makes sense), but cuttings would always wilt quickly when they were far from him. He always said that they were just accustomed to his presence, and so grew wistful and melancholy in his absence. It made a sort of sense to me, since I had only known him during his “lilac era” and so my grandfather and his lilacs are intertwined in my mind.
All this to explain my surprise when I came home one day to find a small potted lilac sapling deposited carefully on my doorstep. Seeing the lilac was like coming upon the stump of your favorite tree—you see what remains, and it reminds you of what was lost even while it comforts you. The sapling smelled of summer days long past, with a small handwritten note from my grandfather sticking from the loamy soil, the words shaky from the crumbling control he held over his hands:
“Grandson,
I entrust this child of my grove to you. The lilacs always enjoyed your presence among them, and you seem to have inherited my green thumb. This sapling is for you; but don’t let it taste anything but soil until it grows older—the young ones lack self control.
Don’t be afraid of them.
Love, Grandpa”
I don’t know when he had the time to write the note or send it, as his death was sudden—he was found leaning against one of his lilac trees, the oldest of the grove, with a smile on his face and sightless eyes. At least it seemed he had passed without pain, which is really all anyone can hope for. I was a bit confused about what he wrote about the sapling tasting things and being afraid of lilacs, but maybe he meant it to guide me on how to care for the sapling (he thought miracle-gro was “poison”) and saying “don’t be afraid of them” to assuage my fear of killing the tiny tree, the last gift he gave me.
I truly loved my grandfather. He filled a hole the absence of my dad left in me, a bitter wound that served to make me lash out at my peers and those close to me. He was always gentle, though gruff, and I still remember him telling me, “Grandson, your father wasn’t a bad man. Misguided, yes. Xenophobic, certainly. Bad? No. Don’t let his absence taint your life.” It was the advice I needed at the time, and I was able to get my emotional ducks in a row by the time I finished high school (well, maybe a few years after, but he set me on the right path.)
And so, after I received the sapling, my life slowly returned to the routine it had before he died. It grew slowly, agonizingly, imperceptibly slowly. I was worried at times it was dying, because progress was so slow.
It wasn’t until I cut myself while pruning a dead leaf, spraying the soil with my blood, that the sapling started really growing.
The growth coincided with the dreams.
I kept the sapling in my room, on my windowsill next to several succulents and a pitcher plant a friend had gotten me from an exotic plant dealer. It had no flowers, but smelled faintly of the lilacs it would hopefully one day come to bear. The night I had nicked myself, I went to bed following my usual routine—I’m going to run through it here just in case someone can point something that could have lead to the dream I had: First, I brushed my teeth (with toothpaste, mint). Next, I took two melatonin pills, and my antidepressants. Lastly, I took a big drink of water, looked in the mirror, and said, “Lilac Lilac you’re the best, you are better than the rest”
Just joking about the last part, but really what I normally do last is say goodnight to my plants. After wishing each of them goodnight and cracking the window to let air circulate, I hopped into bed and wrapped myself in my weighted blanket. I’ve gotten my bedtime routine down to a fine science and so I was asleep less than 30 minutes later.
I woke up, and my grandfather was crouched next to my bed, peeking over the side and staring me in my just-opened eyes. His mouth was out of my line of sight, but I could see his cheeks move as he said, “gr and son” in that cadence over and over again, all the while staring into my eyes like he was searching for something.
Needless to say, I tried to move or say something, to tell him I loved him one last time, even though clearly this was a dream, but shortly after opening my eyes I felt them drooping and “fell asleep” again shortly after—falling asleep in a dream is a super weird feeling.
When I woke up for real the next morning, the lilac sapling had cracked its pot, pale roots intermingling with the potsherds clinging to the dirt. It had grown overnight, and had gotten taller, like it had speedrun puberty. Weird way to describe a plant growing, I know, but it feels right. Of course, I was ecstatic that it had finally grown, and that I wasn’t slowly killing this last connection I had with my grandfather. I called out of work and transferred the sapling to a larger pot which would serve as a home until it grew large enough for an even bigger pot—planting him in the ground outside would have to wait till I owned a home rather than rented one.
I still have dreams along the same vein as that first one, though my grandfathers vocabulary and grammar has been improving—he tells me stories that he told me when he was alive, and a few he didn’t. I wake up feeling rested and happy. But if that was always the case, I probably wouldn’t be posting here, would I?
I’ve been having another dream recently, as the lilac sapling—now a fledgling tree—grows larger, and it frightens me. It’s a continuation of the memory I talked about in the beginning. I get up from the ground, an imprint of my body in the grass, and my grandfather tells me to head inside to bed, that he’ll be in a bit later as he has “some work to do in the grove”. I head inside the farmhouse, and get ready for bed, sneaking a sip of the mead my grandfather brewed from the lilac trees, and go to sleep. Usually, I don’t wake up, but something wakes me this time. I go check on my grandfather, expecting to hear his jet-engine snoring, but it’s silent. I get worried, and open his door, seeing his bed empty and unslept in. I go back to my room, and try to go back to sleep, but images of him hurt after falling from a ladder or some other accident with nobody to check on him fill my mind. I grab my flashlight, and head to the side door in the darkness, moving smoothly through the house I have memorized like the back of my hand. It’s very dark outside at night, so far from any city, and the silence is cut only by the soft drone of bugs in the distance. The moon beams down at me, providing just enough light to send my imagination into overdrive, farm equipment becoming monsters waiting to eviscerate me in the cold night. Every crunch of gravel beneath my feet is an affront, my flashlight a beacon screaming “I’m here, and I’m tasty” to any creatures in the night. But I press on, driven by the thought my grandfather could be in trouble—after all, why would he still be out?
Once I reach the grass, it gets a bit easier. The faint smell of the lilac grove moves towards me in the wind, and I feel a bit braver. I pass the barn, and reach the outer ring of lilacs, my flashlight passing over the waving flowers. It feels almost…rude to keep it on the trees, like talking in the middle of a sermon, so I turn it to the ground, illuminating the pale roots of the lilac trees, and walk towards the center of the grove. My eyes slowly adjust now that I have to use them to look in front of me as I creep forwards, feeling nervous at the prospect of finding my grandfather. What if he’s dead? What if he’s out here to get some privacy? I don’t know what old people do. My flashlight flickers, and I think I can see my grandfather standing ahead of me, looking up at the branches of the lilac tree. I raise the flashlight up, and call out for him, only to see his face peeled back, his eyes unseeing on flaps of skin as his exposed skull, full of lilac flowers, extends thin white tendrils with pulsing purple veins into the oldest tree above. I see the tendrils coming from the tree, intermingling with those coming from him, and I scream as his neck slowly swivels but his head doesn’t turn at the same rate, the tendrils writhing together like snakes in a pit and his face starts knitting itself back together like sewing patches onto a jacket—starting to hide the lilacs and the lilacs are him and the lilacs are everywhere and their spice fills my nose and I’m on the ground—
And my grandfather stands over me, a sad smile on his face. He reaches down, and stabs my right hand with a lilac branch, and I see the pale tendrils snaking their way up my arm. Purple darkness finds me in the lilac grove my grandfather grew.
Then, I wake up, and I feel strange, smelling the strong scent of his lilacs. My right hand clenches tightly in a fist, almost like its holding on to something of its own volition–I can’t peel my fingers open, and it makes me feel sick to my stomach when I try. I’ve been seeing lilac flowers blooming in the corners of my vision, and sometimes it looks like something is moving beneath my floorboards, but I chalk that up to how tired I’ve been recently.
I went to the doctor about my hand, and they told me it was probably “psychosomatic”, but my white blood cell count was “highly elevated” and my iron was low, so they gave me antibiotics to clear what they told me was a bacterial infection. I kept asking them for an X-ray to see if maybe something in the palm of my hand was causing it to clench, but they politely told me that it wasn’t likely. I stayed at the hospital for a day, as they said it almost seemed like I was septic, but I wasn’t anywhere close to dying. I felt a bit better after staying there overnight, until I saw the bill.
I got home a couple of days ago, and unfortunately my symptoms have returned in full force—lilacs bloom in sporadic bursts across my vision, my hand throbs in waves of purple pain, and the spice of my grandfather’s lilacs fills the air, though my sapling doesn’t bear any. I don’t mind it as much as I used to, the sights and smells. I’ve begun to feel a certain peace with it, alongside the lightheadedness. Thinking clearly has gotten a bit difficult, I keep getting distracted by the blooms…I was going to do something later today, and there’s a half finished note I must have written that says “prune arm”—I don’t know what I meant by that, but perhaps there is a branch on one of my plants that needs prun…lilacs again. Smells so strong, makes me yawn.
Anyways, I’ll get to the point, then take a nap—the real reason I’m telling all of you this is that I tried to move my bed recently, and when I was able to shift it (with great effort), I saw pale white roots entering the posts from my floor. I’m too tired to think straight, and my eyes are shutting of their own volition while I write these last few words, but I think I remember what I came here to ask and I’m starting to get very worried about it:
Is this going to affect my security deposit?