I finally got the jars out of the back of my car and brought them down to my basement. One of the boxes was labeled "grape juice" in my little sister's left handed scrawl. I opened up the box to find her jars neatly stacked with lids on them, or little scraps of saran wrap.
I can only imagine that it is to prevent them from getting dusty and filled with little spiders while they are in storage. To tell you the truth, that is one of my oldest fears from when I was a kid. I remember canning with my mom and dumping the jars into a sink full of hot sudsy water, only to find spiders curled up and dead in their silky webs at the bottom of a mason jar. I'd have to reach my hand in there to detach it and it gave me the shivers. I really don't like spiders. How do they always seem to find their way into mason jars?
Anyway, the point of this story is that I looked at that box and almost found myself getting emotional like my sister is dead or something and this is the box that I came across after her death. I brushed it off as an irrational thought and them almost in the same thought, I realized that I am not all that far off base. My sister moved to Florida where she lives in a camp trailer near the ocean. The part of her that canned grape juice is certainly dead. She doesn't have room in her trailer for many regular groceries so a year's supply of homemade grape juice is not something she'll have in that place. I looked around the room I was in and couldn't imagine moving all the food storage, let alone giving it up for the beach life. It's interesting how we all turn out. I have always said that there isn't enough time in life to do all the things I'd like to do. If I could, I'd live a dozen different lives. I would have had a different college degree. I wanted to be a photographer, or make pottery. Or a history teacher, librarian, or nurse. I'd love to live a life where I traveled all the time and lived out of a backpack in Europe. I'd like to live on the beach along the Oregon coast. I'd love to rescue every abused child and be the mother to dozens of them. There are so many things I'd love to do. But I am happy with the life I've chosen. I'm happy being at home with my kids and baking bread every few weeks. I'm happy with my food storage room and my sister is happy in her trailer by the ocean. The part of her that put these canning jars away is dead and gone and the other part of her is happily basking in the Florida sun with a kite board in the back of her FJ Cruiser. There's nothing to be sad about that for, but I sure wish she'd come back here to say hello. I'd give her a jar of grape juice.
1 comment:
Keep your door unlocked I will popping in and getting a glass of grape juice and a giant hug!
Post a Comment