Apple Blossom Time

[imageflow id="11"]

I’ll be with you in apple blossom time
I’ll be with you to change your name to mine

May 8th. My parents would have been married 66 years on this day. From my earliest memories, they always cherished the song “Apple Blossom Time” as “their song”. I can’t hear it, or think of it, without my heart going warm and tender, filled with both joy and sorrow.

Some day in May
I’ll come and say
Happy’s the bride
The sun shines on today

Mom passed away on November 1st, 2006. She was my Dad’s heart and soul. She had been failing slowly for a while, and he cared for her, tended her needs, totally dedicated to her for the last few years. When she passed away, a huge piece of his heart went with her.

On the 26th of February, 2010, Pop joined Mom. Or at least, with all my heart, and with all my many tears, I have prayed that my beliefs are truth, and that they are together again. Some days, the only thing that keeps me moving forward, is my hope that they are once again happy, together, and as in love as they were for the sixty two years they were together in life. And yet, through all my hope, I still have fear. I’ve doubted, and I’ve been afraid to doubt, scrubbing the “what ifs” out of my mind every time they tried to creep in. I have asked, over and over, for a sign: something unmistakable that would let me know they truly are together and happy.

What a wonderful wedding there will be
What a wonderful day for you and me

Twenty years ago, we purchased two tiny saplings, both flowering crab trees. We planted them apart, but within sight of each other, between our two houses. Mom and Pop’s tree died that winter, but ours has carried on. It’s sickly, spindly, some years only has grown a few leaves, and never once has it bloomed.

And then yesterday, I stood out on the deck, our deck, Mom and Dad’s deck, and looked down toward the house we just moved out of, where my daughter is now living. There, on the branches of that poor little flowering crab-apple tree … were blossoms. Not just one, not just a few, but all the inner branches of the tree were graced in pastel flowers.

Church bells will chime
You will be mine
In Apple Blossom Time.

Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad. I love you and miss you with all my heart. And thank you for my flowers; thank you for my sign.