Wednesday, March 7, 2018

Unexpected Blueberries

Around the middle of September, my littlest kid and I needed to drive my husband's car for 60 miles. A sensor had been reset and we needed it to log 60 miles into the engine computer, so any 60 miles would do. Not a great day out for a not-quite-five-year-old, but I did my best to turn it into an adventure.
If you didn't know already, 90% of parenting is actually PR work. My understanding of this fact began to dawn when my oldest was about three. I pealed his banana and handed it to him, only to see his face crumple like a deflating ballon: there was a bruise on his banana. The initial grief lasted less than my intake of breath and moved directly into burning hot outrage: THERE WAS A BRUISE ON HIS BANANA!! Necessity is really only the cousin of invention, her true mother is desperation. "You lucky dude! You got a sweet spot on your banana!" His little eyebrows pulled together. A sweet spot? Just a bit more enthusiasm on my part and he dubiously ate his banana. To this day, all three of my kids prefer a banana with a spot or two on it. That is power, people.
So, I did my best to sell this 60 miles of aimless driving. We drove past his friends' houses. We drove past our old house. We drove out into the country to see if we could find a barbed wire fence (a fascination of his.)
"Oh!" I said, "Let's go see if the blueberry forest is still there!"
In the next town over from where we live, there was a you-pick blueberry place that the kids and I discovered by accident one day. It was on the property of a very kind, elderly lady who told us that her father had planted the bushes more than 80 years ago. The place was like a fairy tale. The bushes are taller than I am by a few feet, so on a hot august afternoon you could sit in the shade of the blueberry trees and pick for hours. The berries were small, sweet, and almost magical coming from such a place. We picked there two summers, and then when we came the third year the you-pick sign wasn't there and all the cars were different in the driveway. I learned from the community grapevine that the elderly lady had passed away, and her grandchildren were deciding what to do with the property. I actually cried. The idea of that rarified place being sold to become a housing development, as is very common in our area, stuck in my throat. I thought of those towering bushes crushed, and I felt crushed. On that day in September, I had already grieved the place. I had tucked it into my memory to keep for always. To tell like a fish story, the bushes getting taller with passing time. I felt like I needed to see what the place was now. I needed to say a final goodbye.
We wound our way up the narrow main road to the wind-blown hilltop to the farm where we cut our Christmas trees. Just a bit further was the corner where you turn off onto a side road that takes you passed the edge of the blueberry forest. On that corner was the last thing that I expected to see:
"You-pick blueberries! Never sprayed. $1.50/lb" It was still there! I bounced in my seat, and my driving companion cheered. I was secretly a little concerned that the sign hadn't been taken in at the end of the season. I wondered if that meant that there had been berries this year, but next year was less certain. But we turned down the road anyhow so I could show my kid just how big the bushes really were. Really, truly, I can't reach the tops on tip-toe.
When we saw them, not only were they tall, they were covered in blue. The blueberry forest had saved a precious bounty this late in the season and it felt like it was just for us.
My little family had been through so much in the previous months. We all gave up so many things. We all had to let expectations and dreams blow away in the wind not just once, but over and over. We aren't quite to the other side yet, but I hope it is close. My kids have been amazing though it all, but it has been very, very hard. Every summer my kids and I pick berries to make jam and tuck away in the freezer for the miracle of strawberry pancake syrup in January and blueberry pie at Christmas. That annual tradition was one more thing that wasn't going to happen this year.
When we drove up to find those bountiful bushes still laden with fruit the third week in September, it was the magic of the blueberry forest. A gift from the fairies.
We picked a small bagful to snack on while we finished our 60 mile quest. At the weekend, I gathered all the kids so that we could bask together awhile in what we had been given.
The berries became blueberry jam, and I took the last jar out of the freezer today.

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