Mom's Favorite

Summer of P: Past

From 2007: Lilacs in Light

The Mystery at Lilac Inn

Any of you remember that title? It was one of the Nancy Drew mysteries.

Growing up in southern California, I didn't know what lilacs were. My mom said they grew where it got cold in the winter. She told me it was her favorite flower.

When I was about 10, my mom started allowing me to read her copies of the Nancy Drew books. They were some of the few books she kept from her childhood in the 1930s. She kept them way up by the ceiling on a top shelf in the laundry room. I had to climb on a counter and stand on tiptoe to get to them.

I loved their blue cloth covers. The thick pages. That "old books" aroma.

I loved that dresses were called "frocks" and they drove around in a convertible called a "roadster." Reading those books may be a principle reason I love words and language and have a vocabulary that helps me relate precise feelings. 

Mostly I love that my mom trusted me enough to read her Nancy Drew books.

When I moved to Idaho for college, there were huge lilac bushes growing outside the music/dance building. We used to keep the windows open in the Spring to drink in their scent. I came to love lilacs, too. I later grew some in our Post Falls yard. This photo is from one of them.

When I moved from Idaho to Oregon, Dale and I gave away most of our large library of books. I gave my mom's Nancy Drew books to my librarian daughter, Julie.

She keeps them on a top shelf.

Maybe in four years, she'll trust Melody to start reading them.