Dogwood blossoms

The trees budded and blossomed this week. On Wednesday, after the rain, I saw white, pink-purple, and green everywhere.

I thought of the dogwood tree my family briefly had in the front yard of our old house. My dad planted it from a sapling. I remember when the nursery truck delivered it. Not once but twice, because the first one died. The second one died too. I can’t remember why: maybe the soil. The third time was the charm though. The ornamental pear tree sapling thrived!

My dad was disappointed though. He had been set on having a dogwood. He was taken by the white blossoms. Four petals in a cross shape, with spots of pink-purple like nail marks on all four ends and a crown-like stamen in the middle. Like the crucifixion and resurrection all in one, he told me.

There’s a Smith family photo of us all in our Easter best in front of that pear tree in full blossom. Would’ve been about 1990. I’m wearing a vintage 90s sweater with a white turtleneck underneath. And my dad with his bushy mustache was probably thinking, “Should’ve been a dogwood.”

My dad didn’t have to be the perfect dad, and my family didn’t have to be a perfect family, and that Easter photo didn’t have to be the perfect family photo. It didn’t even have to be a dogwood tree. Still the warmth of the presence of God is woven into that memory for me.

And Wednesday didn’t need to be a perfect day. And none of the blossoming trees I saw had to be dogwoods. And still, the presence of God, with the Easter truth that God brings life out of death, joy and redemption out of pain.

It’s really a shame it wasn’t a dogwood though. I’m deeply allergic to pear blossoms, like stand under the tree and have an asthma attack allergic. And there’s nothing sweet about the smell. For 10 days a year every spring, rotten garbage. Thank God that family Easter photo’s not a scratch and sniff.

What are your Easter memories?

Pastor Clark Olson-Smith