Crying again

(Photo by BobbaLew.)

Yesterday (Thursday, May 9th, 2013) I’m returning to my big empty house with my dog from working-out at the YMCA in Canandaigua and shopping the grocery-store.
I turn in my driveway and see what’s illustrated above.
It starts me crying.
I’m not even sure what it is, but I think they’re sweet-peas.
My wife planted ‘em, probably dug up from some roadside.
My wife died in April of last year.
I was told it was anniversaries that would upset me, like birthdays and wedding-anniversaries.
I disagreed.
I said it was the many flowers she planted, that they would flower again.
The other day I was mowing my front yard.
I noticed the bridal-wreath was flowering, so here I am on my gigantic mower crying.
That bridal-wreath was flowering when she died last year; it may be the last beauty she noticed.
The bridal-wreath was early last year, it had been warm.
The whole hedge is wrapped in white, and it’s a long hedge, about 30-35 feet.
Our (my) entire yard is awash in color. There is the bridal-wreath and the weeping-cherry. Out back is a dogwood covered with white blossoms. Behind my bedroom-window is a red-bud tree.
The daffodils are done, and the magnolia-tree is about done.
There are at least five forsythia-bushes awash in yellow. Tulips are flowering in random locations.
And I am surrounded by lilacs.
Some were started by us from plantings about a foot tall, and now surpass 15 feet.
I pass the location of an old farmhouse taking my dog to the park. That farmhouse was torn down, but the surrounding lilac bushes are still there, a testament to their long-ago owners.
Similar testaments to my wife are all around my house.
They start me crying.
Yesterday I encountered the sweet-peas, which I didn’t even know existed.

• “Canandaigua” (“cannan-DAY-gwuh”) is a small city nearby where I live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” It’s about 14 miles east. —I live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield, southeast of Rochester. I work-out at the Canandaigua YMCA.
• I’ve been told, by other than “CG,” the flowers pictured are bleeding-hearts. I remember that. —It prompts fond memories about “bleeding-heart Liberials.” (My blowhard brother-in-Boston, the know-it-all macho Harley-dude who noisily badmouths everything I do or say, loudly insists the word “Liberal” is spelled “Liberial.” He’s a tub-thumping Conservative, and Liberals are Of-the-Devil.)