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| Violets among the dandelions filled our yard in New York |
"Happy May Day!" I said to the cashier as I handed her the two bouquets of multicolored daisies to ring up. "It's May Day?" she asked as she scanned the bar code. "Yep, it most certainly is and I'm celebrating!" She smiled and nodded, probably more to humor me than anything. I put the debit card back in my wallet and before stepping away wished her a happy May Day one more time. I was feeling good, May had arrived, and I couldn't wait to share this day with a couple of friends.
I always looked forward to that first day in May growing up in Western New York. March seemed to stretch on forever and April was usually a tease, changeable and unpredictable. But May was different. Her disposition was sunny and she held the promise of many good days ahead. At her arrival, the trees were blossoming and the returning birds were building or settling into their nests. The grass was becoming a lush, thick green, interspersed throughout with the inevitable dandelion and the much daintier purple violet.
I might have acquired my love for the month of May from my mother. On May Day each year she would cut a small section off a roll of wallpaper, form it into a cone, make a handle and and glue it all together with a bit of wallpaper paste. Then she'd send us on a hunt to fill it with whatever flowers we could find and each year it was the same. We would fill our paper basket with violets.
Fred and Louise McMullen lived next door. I don't know how old they were, I just knew they were lots older than my mom and dad. And they had no children. So every first of May we would quietly creep over to their backdoor, place the basket full of violets over the doorknob, ring the bell and skedaddle before they could retrieve it. I'm pretty sure they knew all along that the Marvin kids and their mama were behind the ritual, but we did it anyways. Year after year.
I had decided the night before that I was going to surprise someone with flowers for May Day. Perhaps it's simply nostalgia, realizing this would be my last May Day in New York. Or maybe it was just one more way of thanking my mother for the example she had set for us, her children, showing us how to care for our neighbors in simple, yet tangible ways.
So after leaving the store with my two bouquets, I called friend number one from the car. Well into her 90's, it'd been way too long since I'd stopped in to see her. She answered on the third ring. The back door would be open for me, she said. The second friend, pretty much confined to her home, seemed delighted with her bouquet as well. But I know full well that the better part of my May Day surprise was the visit itself and that I had chosen to include them in my personal celebration. The flowers were simply a reminder of that.
I'm pretty sure that's what it was like for Fred and Louise as well. The busy mom with the five rambunctious children next door (and we were) chose to include them in the joyful welcome of spring, fully arrived after the long, long winter. And for them, hopefully, the wallpaper basket full of freshly-picked violets placed on their doorknob was simply the reminder that there were those who cared enough to place them there.
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| Violets that I discovered just today along the wall of our parsonage |
