Jam

Dear Grandma B,

Do you remember when you tried to teach me how to make strawberry jam? Good heavens what a mess. We were in the kitchen on Lanai Street in Long Beach. I wanted to read the directions that came with the jars and you laughed at me and threw them straight away. You said that making jam was like having sex... that you couldn't do it by reading about it, you just had to jump right into it, and once you did you'd know exactly what to do. I'm still not totally convinced about that analogy.

First we washed all those strawberries! And I can't remember the rest of the process actually, but I remember spending the day with you in that kitchen. It was a perfect day. We talked a lot about you and Grandpa George. How the two of you were going to put off your wedding day because you couldn't find an apartment to live in and how you "sure as hell weren't going to live with your in-laws." And then how lucky you were because right before the wedding an apartment was found. When we were doing something with the sugar you told me how all the neighbors saved their sugar rationing stamps so that you and Grandpa George could have a wedding cake.

We also talked a lot about how much you wanted a baby... how long you waited for one. I didn't know it then, but that part of that day brought so much comfort to me later when I struggled for a baby of my own. It's like you somehow knew. I'm not surprised; you always knew what I needed before I did.

We laughed a lot that day, and maybe that is what made the jam sweeter. If I could, I would go back in time and seal up your never ending optimism and laughter along with that jam. Certainly no one would blame me for wanting to open it now, and it is the type of thing that lasts forever.

I can't remember how much jam we made that day. And I can't even remember everything we talked about. But if I close my eyes, I can still see you at the stove stirring the strawberry goop that was in the big pot over the burner with the thermometer hanging over the edge. Your glasses were constantly fogging up, that one lock of wiry gray hair flopping over your forehead.

I've never ever made jam since then. Not because it was such a horrible hassle. Or terribly sticky. I came home that day covered in strawberry stickiness. No. I never made jam again because I never wanted to have that memory replaced in my mind with another.

But Grandma, did you really have to compare it to sex? Really?

Love,
Cristina