Apples ⭐️
Mom died on a Wednesday, a day that marks the middle of the week, yet it was her end and just the beginning for me. Her celebration of life was beautiful, everything I imagined and more, even though I can’t remember any of it. I was numb, smiling, thanking people for coming, nodding in sympathy and consoling them for the friend they lost.
She was the consummate hostess, food, drink and laughter abundant. We had endless shrimp, poke, sashimi and sushi platters. Roasted turkey breast, vegetables and dips. Mediterranean platters with olives, artichoke hearts, prosciutto and roasted red peppers. But my favorite was always the cheese platter. Beautiful brie and mixed cheeses with sweet grapes, strawberries and tart granny smith apples that you could balance out with a nice chunk of dark chocolate that was always tucked on the corner of the platter.
When I was little my mom used to cut me slices of granny smith apples, leaving the skin on, told me they were good for me. She was always about what was healthy for her children, even though I would have given anything for one taste of cookie crisp cereal or a nibble of those white powdered donuts from Love’s Bakery that used to be on our local Checkers and Pogo children’s show. There was a game they used to play where they would see who could eat the donut off of the hanging string fastest without using their hands, their smiling, satisfied faces covered in sweet white powder. If you lost, you really still won, because how can you be a loser with sugar all over your face? If it was your birthday, you were allowed to grab one handful of pennies from the huge penny jar. Our eagerness blind to the narrowed opening of the jar that trapped our anxious little hand, making you realize you had to release some of what you were holding on to so tightly, leaving you with maybe only a dollar twenty five if you were lucky.
Funny that letting go, releasing, really is the answer to every struggle.
A few days after the dust had settled from the party and everyone retreated to their respective corners to start their grieving, that they felt they were done and over with already, I noticed two granny smith apples in my fridge still. I guess in all the craziness of planning and prepping and the many hands in the kitchen, they never found their way on to the cheese and fruit platter. I didn’t get a chance to have a bite or a drink that night, so I didn’t even notice. Every time I open my fridge, I see them and flash on all the ways I could eat them; with some leftover brie, with a grilled cheese or maybe with some French toast on a blustery Sunday morning. And yet day after day, I open my fridge, dozens of times, and I reach for something else, the apple possibilities fading. They have become such a fixture in my fridge and I weirdly feel comforted every time I see them. Just like the unopened bottle of Chardonnay that she never had a chance to taste on Christmas Eve. Just like the monkey pod bowl filled with condolences that still sit on my kitchen counter, the cards tattered ever so slightly by the nibbles of one my pups that has now grown tall enough to taste the paper corners when I left him alone for a few hours. Although that would be a gentle stretch from the truth of coming home to the sympathy cards, that I wasn’t yet ready to open and read, strewn about the house and dark back yard, many unreadable, the obligatory monetary gifts missing. Truth is I found bits of crisp hundred dollar bills in the end stage of my dog’s dinners for days. People always used to joke about wanting to come back in their next life as a dog in my house, living it up, a true dog’s life. If only they knew, they’d crap money too.
But now my apples are beginning to get a little brown around the edges and have those little soft spots on them when apples have turned. My bowl of cards are a little dusty too and the chewed edges are starting to get a little tattered and old looking. I see this and yet I don’t understand this. Feels like yesterday Mom died and we just had her celebration of life, a very short, two months later. And yet as fresh as this feels, I too feel the browning and transitioning of my grief, the sharp edges softening into a new normal without her every day. And I realize that if I put away the cards and throw out the apples, it would mark that this time has passed and I am not sure if I am ready for it to be done. It’s like my apples are reminding me, that she’s been gone for over four months now, that life goes on, but I am not ready to move forward without her yet. I am not stuck in the past, but I am not sure how to step into my future without her.
And so it’s Wednesday again, “hump” day as we call it. As if to imply that if you can get through this day, it’s all downhill and easy coasting from here. And yet the Wednesdays continue to come and go and I keep getting up every day, some days it’s all I can do. No longer her caregiver, no longer hearing her laughter, no longer hearing her voice call me “Pumpkin”. I know this will shift at some point for me, but for now, it’s where I am and I have to forgive and allow myself to be here with my rotting apples and tattered cards that represent my mother’s death, letting the grief self-soften it’s sharp edges.
