Hyacinths and Grandmas

I remember the day that hyacinths became my favorite flower. 

We went to visit my Grandma at the retirement home where she lived in Rochester, New York one spring evening.  Each of the apartments at her complex had a little shelf outside the front door where everyone would typically display little statuettes from around the world or pictures of their grandchildren. On my grandma's floor, maybe two or three doors down from her, lived a woman who would have a new, fresh batch of flowers out on her shelf every week.

Well, one Sunday we went to visit my Grammy and the woman had hyacinths outside of her door. When we got off the elevator I was MESMERIZED.  You could smell them all the way down the hall before you could even see them. I didn't know what they were at that point - but I knew that what I was smelling was Spring. And I looked at them as we passed - stopping to inspect each of the small buds on the stalk and I made up my mind then and there that even though their shape was not at all typical, their smell was so overpowering and almost royal that they deserved to be my absolute favorite.

And that's the way it's been ever since then! Hyacinths have been my favoritefavoritefavoritefavorite flower. And last evening as I was sitting at my house on Easter Sunday, I could smell the hyacinth that my dad gave my mom throughout the entire house and my heart was so glad. I'm so happy for beautiful, colorful flowers and smells, and memories and the rebirth of living things during this season.