Yesterday after lunch, I was peeling a pear and chopping it up for my son, and my mind drifted to one of the many afternoons I spent in my grandmother’s house in London. The reason, funnily enough, was pears. In her later years, one thing Ammachy truly enjoyed was pears. Not just any ol’ pears. Conference pears, not too raw or too ripe, and the longer the better (short, stubby ones didn’t have the same texture).
And so almost every time she gave me a shopping list beforehand, or if I just rang to ask if she needed anything, pears would invariably feature. I enjoyed buying them, because it was always a little challenge. I had to select just the right ones, not just mindlessly chuck a few in a bag. And then after we’d had lunch she would pick out a couple, cut them up and place them on the table.
"This one isn’t quite ready", she would say, or "the last few times they haven’t been sweet". And once in a while she’d really enjoy one and just say "good pear" and I’d feel like I had personally fashioned it myself.
I thought about these things yesterday mostly because I caught myself chopping the pear in exactly the same way she did, and then placing it in front of my son the way she did for me.
I think of Ammachy often, and most times the thoughts are accompanied by a sense of sorrow at the fact that she’s not around anymore, but this time seemed different. Yes, there was still a yearning, a melancholy realisation that even though I still have her number saved in my phone she’s not going to answer anymore. But for the first time the over-riding emotion was not sadness.
I guess this is what time does. A person is present, and then is absent, and then, in time, they are present again. And then one day you think about them when you’re peeling pears and you look at your little son relishing them and it feels like that person is still there, sitting across from you and commenting on the quality of the pear.
Maybe this was just another reminder to me of how ingrained our parents' and our grandparents' influences are within us. And when they leave, their memories are our oxygen, their shadows are our shade. But most importantly they are, and will always be, what we are, and will be to our children. And in that cliched but beautiful circle of life, we can find a way to smile.
So, yeah, pears. Just wanted to share.
And so almost every time she gave me a shopping list beforehand, or if I just rang to ask if she needed anything, pears would invariably feature. I enjoyed buying them, because it was always a little challenge. I had to select just the right ones, not just mindlessly chuck a few in a bag. And then after we’d had lunch she would pick out a couple, cut them up and place them on the table.
"This one isn’t quite ready", she would say, or "the last few times they haven’t been sweet". And once in a while she’d really enjoy one and just say "good pear" and I’d feel like I had personally fashioned it myself.
I thought about these things yesterday mostly because I caught myself chopping the pear in exactly the same way she did, and then placing it in front of my son the way she did for me.
I think of Ammachy often, and most times the thoughts are accompanied by a sense of sorrow at the fact that she’s not around anymore, but this time seemed different. Yes, there was still a yearning, a melancholy realisation that even though I still have her number saved in my phone she’s not going to answer anymore. But for the first time the over-riding emotion was not sadness.
I guess this is what time does. A person is present, and then is absent, and then, in time, they are present again. And then one day you think about them when you’re peeling pears and you look at your little son relishing them and it feels like that person is still there, sitting across from you and commenting on the quality of the pear.
Maybe this was just another reminder to me of how ingrained our parents' and our grandparents' influences are within us. And when they leave, their memories are our oxygen, their shadows are our shade. But most importantly they are, and will always be, what we are, and will be to our children. And in that cliched but beautiful circle of life, we can find a way to smile.
So, yeah, pears. Just wanted to share.
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