Kathryn Nicolai

surrounded by lilac bushes in every direction.

A few people had been to the farm before,

I'd seen the signs encouraging them to stop and take home a few stems.

But there were plenty who had never smelled a lilac.

And I hoped we were creating a memory for them that they could return to many times.

and let someone else handle bundling the stems.

I wrapped one of the aprons around me, noticing that we had indeed raised a good bit of cash already.

As I walked around to the front of the booth to appreciate this little dream that I had brought to life,

She was counting them out and looking at the vases, trying to decide if she had enough for the big one in the center of the table.

I called out to the volunteer behind the booth,

that since it was almost the end of the day, we should put everything on sale for half off.

She looked down at the little girl and nodded at me with a wink.

Good call, boss, she said.

The girl handed over her dollars and walked out with the largest vase we had

Her arms had barely wrapped around it, and her face poked through the stems.

I knew she might have bought them to gift to a parent or grandparent, but I sort of hoped they were all for her, that she would set them on her bedside table, and that the perfume of them

would work its way into her dreams as she slept.

Me and my small crew of volunteers had snipped for more than an hour, but still hadn't emptied the bushes that grew all over the patch of land

There were still more sweet-smelling, mostly purple blooms for the folks that stopped to pick them in the next week or so, before they were gone for another year.

I could still smell the flowers on my skin and sweatshirt.