The Perfectly Impractical Lesson of Lilacia Park

The smell of lilacs at their peak is so potent and so sweet, I find myself burying my face in the blooms. I can never seem to fill my lungs with enough of their heavenly scent. It's why I mark my calendar each year for "Lilac Time," when the blooms in Lilacia Park in Lombard, Ill. are bursting. This park, formerly the estate of Colonel William and Helen Plum, was bequeathed to the Village of Lombard to be used as a public park and serve as the grounds of the public library. The Plums began an extensive collection of lilacs after a visit to the gardens of Victor Lemoine in Nancy, France.

Each spring, I look forward to my visit to Lilacia Park. It is 8.5 acres of purple. Along the pleasing brick pathways are every imaginable variety of lilacs: some are white, some have tight, red buds, others flaunt a deep purple, others a pale lavender. Despite the noisy commuter train that passes just one block away from the park, peacefulness pervades the park. Rabbits and birds and insects and butterflies take residence there, and I am starkly aware that I am merely a visitor in their gorgeous purple palace.

I can be a painfully practical person. So my yearly visits to the park make me shake my head. What were the Plums thinking? Throughout the gardens, lilacs are the prevalent plant. Once, my family visited the park in late summer, and we were somewhat disappointed. "These are just bushes," one of my sons said. True, the lilac bushes are "just" bushes the rest of the year. So why would the Plums collect just one kind of plant, that only blooms for a short time each year?

The Plums have been gone for decades, so I can't ask them. But it reminds me of something very important each year. It reminds me that while practicality has its merits, sometimes practicality has to go right out the window. Sure, it would be more practical to have a variety of plants that bloomed continuously all summer, but where is the magnificence in that? One lilac bush is beautiful, but hundreds and hundreds of lilacs is something so awe inspiring that I can hardly speak when I'm inside the park at lilac time. It's the impracticality of it that makes it extraordinary. Years ago, one of my sons walked into the park for the first time. He was probably 4 or 5 years old. His eyes grew wide as he surveyed the pathways lined with lilacs. "Mom," he whispered reverently, "it looks like Jesus pushed the purple button."