Redcurrant Garden
The Budding
I must have spent hours studying the picture in the frame above my grandfather's bed. She had been sixteen, white-gloved and Bible in lap, recently confirmed. In a lacy blouse, pointy shoulders, and with white straight teeth she had posed for the picture. I recognized in it my father's smile, his forehead - and beyond that, his innocence. With the picture in my lap it was hard to imagine, the sharp edges of the picture frame puncturing the heels of my hands, that she herself was no more. The concept troubled me, and put its weights on my shoulders. It was beyond me how an ornate piece of steel can be more tangible and enduring than the very depths of humanity.
My father always spoke of her; about her kindness, her unselfishness, her justice which ruled humbly over four children. Every orange was four wedges, every minute fifteen seconds dedicated to each. Between raising four boys, only five years between them, working part-time at the hospital and volunteering for the Red Cross, there was embroidering pillow cases and starching dining room tablecloths. There were windows to be washed, beds to be made and a neat disarray of common metals to be polished fine. With closed eyes my father could recall the sparse golden twinkle from her wedding ring, cutting meat for the stew, her hands coarse and pink from a million dish waters. Especially he recalled the garden.
There would be a seasonal abundance of redcurrant bushes in the backyard. Almost ceremonially she would dismantle them to create a sweetened, jarred and labeled stock of preserves. The bushes, my father would say fondly, sprouted and stretched their roots with a remarkable delight, and unfolded more wide leaves and ripened more bright red berries every year than the previous. Each year a new set of tender green limbs shot up amongst the cluster, it seemed. In summer there grew a scarlet garden, of much too many berries to be made jam out of or that neighbor kids could make an easy steal. But there was never talk of cutting them down.
About the garden an unchallenged rule applied. Life, in its most saturated form took place there and whether it was by a single exception or an unwavering principle that she let the bushes grow, they trumped her high-held tradition of neatness. A willingness and a joy appeared to reside in every branch and every berry that grew in the garden. A joy in being, a greater joy in the idea of continuing to be and an unkempt and unshaken ecstasy in the hope of springing anew that fall brings about. Strength of life was drawn from the frailty of existence; each branch extended thick and strong initially and whittled down to expose the thread-like ends which despite their tenderness carried red and rounded pearls. Even to a young boy standing in the greens of his backyard, the sensation had been eminent.
It wasn't mercy from some ignorant pity that compelled her to let the bushes grow wild, but it was an awe and a reverence of something higher. In fact it was rarely sympathy that took its course within her. She didn't aim to help to satisfy some self-enhancing need to make a difference, or to serve, or singe her cheeks or prick her thumb or toil on her knees to redeem the unimportance that being an uneducated woman had given her. She didn't try to acquire her worth, and from this grew her priceless character. Instead of pity there was awe, instead of righteousness justice and humanity was out of admiration and not mercy. The skin on her hands that had become raw soon in life - as my dad recalled it - was not a banner to recognize but a badge to assert the sacrifices that she made.
My father always spoke of her; about her kindness, her unselfishness, her justice which ruled humbly over four children. Every orange was four wedges, every minute fifteen seconds dedicated to each. Between raising four boys, only five years between them, working part-time at the hospital and volunteering for the Red Cross, there was embroidering pillow cases and starching dining room tablecloths. There were windows to be washed, beds to be made and a neat disarray of common metals to be polished fine. With closed eyes my father could recall the sparse golden twinkle from her wedding ring, cutting meat for the stew, her hands coarse and pink from a million dish waters. Especially he recalled the garden.
There would be a seasonal abundance of redcurrant bushes in the backyard. Almost ceremonially she would dismantle them to create a sweetened, jarred and labeled stock of preserves. The bushes, my father would say fondly, sprouted and stretched their roots with a remarkable delight, and unfolded more wide leaves and ripened more bright red berries every year than the previous. Each year a new set of tender green limbs shot up amongst the cluster, it seemed. In summer there grew a scarlet garden, of much too many berries to be made jam out of or that neighbor kids could make an easy steal. But there was never talk of cutting them down.
About the garden an unchallenged rule applied. Life, in its most saturated form took place there and whether it was by a single exception or an unwavering principle that she let the bushes grow, they trumped her high-held tradition of neatness. A willingness and a joy appeared to reside in every branch and every berry that grew in the garden. A joy in being, a greater joy in the idea of continuing to be and an unkempt and unshaken ecstasy in the hope of springing anew that fall brings about. Strength of life was drawn from the frailty of existence; each branch extended thick and strong initially and whittled down to expose the thread-like ends which despite their tenderness carried red and rounded pearls. Even to a young boy standing in the greens of his backyard, the sensation had been eminent.
It wasn't mercy from some ignorant pity that compelled her to let the bushes grow wild, but it was an awe and a reverence of something higher. In fact it was rarely sympathy that took its course within her. She didn't aim to help to satisfy some self-enhancing need to make a difference, or to serve, or singe her cheeks or prick her thumb or toil on her knees to redeem the unimportance that being an uneducated woman had given her. She didn't try to acquire her worth, and from this grew her priceless character. Instead of pity there was awe, instead of righteousness justice and humanity was out of admiration and not mercy. The skin on her hands that had become raw soon in life - as my dad recalled it - was not a banner to recognize but a badge to assert the sacrifices that she made.