Memories of Mother…

Those of you who have lost someone close to you will be nodding your head at this entry…

I can be going along with my life, having a perfectly normal day, and all of a sudden a memory of Mother will pop into my head and it will be so vivid that it takes me aback.  Sometimes it makes me tearful, sometimes it makes me smile, and oftentimes, for me, it’s working in the kitchen that triggers it…

I bought fresh green beans at the market, and this morning I was stemming them, wondering if it was really necessary to take off the tails, and for a brief moment, I thought, “I’ll ask Mom, she’ll know.”  And then reality hits me and once again, I realized that I will never ask those questions again, ever.

I was putting the green beans in her stainless steel bowl, by far my favorite thing in my kitchen.  Me with all my fancy gadgets and state of the art equipment, me, who constantly devours every issue of Williams-Sonoma catalog looking for new goodies that I “must have,” me who throws away things that aren’t up to my standards, simply adores that old bowl.  I actually have two of them, they were a set, a large, a medium and a small.  Somehow the medium is gone, I’m surprised as she never threw away anything, but I drag the large one out every single day and use it for something.  The little one, not so much, but it’s there, every time I open the cupboard I see it, and I smile.

And this morning, the memories brought a few tears, but they were brief, like a cloud drifting along in the sky, and then the sun popped thru and I smiled as I remembered how she used to work alongside me, helping me snap the beans, offering suggestions, giving good advice.

So we’ll have them for dinner tonight, and they will be wonderful because they are fresh, but, I’m sure, not as wonderful as hers…  She always loved green beans, picked from her garden, and nobody cooked them better than she did, so these are for you, Mom, I’ll enjoy them and think of you…