M E R I D I A N     M A G A Z I N E

Last of the Summer Fruit
by Ronnie Bray

There is something about autumn that is at once ravishingly beautiful, yet also holds the threat of the coming deadness of winter. That is why the summer fruits were such a treasure to us in a place where autumn, like summer, was often too brief, and winter always too long.

The gathering of fruit was a yearly ritual that had become, as small things often do, part of the fabric of our lives. In time, it attained the status of timeless tradition, a necessary part of the anthology of trivia that we fashioned by usage into earnest ritual that we dare not set aside lest we disturb the natural order of the universe and invoke the condemnation of that Deity who plants His footsteps in the sea and rides upon the storm. So, year on year we gathered the fruits.

Michael, our next door neighbor, had the apple tree of apple trees that produced more fruit year on year than you could shake a stick at. When they reached reasonable size, it began to cast them down, raining on his garden as if they were tennis balls being thrown by a tennis-serving machine gone haywire. Still the sturdy boughs bent under the weight of fruit remaining.

At harvest time, Michael's son, Colin, clambered up the tree and filled carrier bag after carrier bag with the rosy reds and handed then over the fence, from whence we carried them into our kitchen to be peeled, cored, and segmented, then boiled into apple mush, and packed in plastic bags in the freezer bottom.

The blackberries we garnered from the hedgerow that ran down the edge of the field behind our house where once the railway ran. Risking cuts and scratches, and the threat of loud-buzzing winged insects in striped jerseys, we enjoyed harvesting in gentle conversation, occasionally pausing to eat a blackberry riper and more succulent than its fellows, oftimes feeding them into the mouths of the other when we came across a cropping of heroic size.

Thus, we passed our time; sometimes in the heat of sunshine, sometimes in the fine drizzle of balmy summer days, but always in the gentle warmth of affection and esteem that manifested our love whatever the season.

Once home, the blackberries were processed to lie side by side with the apples in the freezer, eventually to share glory as one of Norma's fruit pies, the first of which was always delivered to the Lewis family in recognition of their generosity with their scrumptious apples.

The year before Norma died, she had spent some time down at Joanne's helping Jo cope with her growing family. Although we did not like to be parted, we accepted that family was family and sometimes it was needful to make sacrifices. I called Norma every night, and went down at weekends. We always felt that we could manage to be apart, but constantly found it harder to deal with than we had imagined.

During the weeks that Norma was at Jo's in 1996, I thought to please and surprise her on her return. One evening I got busy and turned all the fruit into blackberry and apple jam. It was delicious. I poured the delicious gloop into jam jars, sealed the tops with cellophane and rubber bands, stuck informative little labels on them, and stood them on top of the refrigerator to set.

When I brought Norma home, I maneuvered her into the kitchen for her surprise and waited for her reaction. I got it, but it was not what I expected. She all but boxed my ears for using all the fruit and leaving none for fruit pies! Fortunately, Norma knew how to forgive and forget, and we survived my folly.

Fruiting and harvest time came again the following year, we took more bags from Michael and Colin, and filled more empty ice cream containers with blackberries from the hedge in the old railway field, and our freezer became the lodging of more bags of fruit-in-waiting. Needless to say, I kept my hands off them, leaving them to Norma's disposal.

In late summer of '97, she lost her energy, and her voice was reduced to a hoarse whisper. She was treated for an inflamed throat that did not respond to the usual antibiotics. In spite of our concerns for her health, when Jo asked her to go down for a few weeks, we felt that she should be well enough to go and help out, even if it was only to do some ironing and babysitting for Jo's boys. During this absence, I kept my hands off the fruit.

Norma left me in November 1997. As she lay dying, she directed that each of her children should have something of hers as her legacy, nominating what each should receive. When I asked her what she would give to me, she smiled gently and said, "I leave you my love." It was enough.

Some things were strangely absent from our home that held precious memories, but there, at the bottom of the freezer, was the summer fruit, and frozen in them were the happy memories of all our summers, autumns, apple pies, and one big boiling of jam! Some memories never end, even those that seem worthless to others, such as apple mush and icy berries.

Time stood still when my beloved died, and I hesitated to move or change anything lest the spirit of the past run away and be lost to me. For months, I sat among Norma's things, sensing Norma, and remembering the warmth of the life we had shared, and would share again. The house seemed so full of her despite the bits and pieces that had been carried off. They became less significant as time passed, for her spirit, even in her absence, filled our home. It takes a great person to leave behind the kind of impression and feeling that Norma left.

After the first mind-splitting shock passed and my humour had returned somewhat, I thought of the fruit and decided to make one last boiling of jam in honour of Norma. I had passed the point of fruit pies, sensing that I would probably never again bake one, but I could make one last batch of jam from the fruits we had harvested together in happier, more carefree days, before the pall of greyness had descended upon our home and brought the separation we knew must come but were unprepared to welcome.

Time passed and a new normality settled into my life. I passed through the house that was so full of her who was now gone away. For a long time I kept her things, taking some comfort from them as they reminded me of times past, and times together, and our love that was like no other love and our marriage that was like no other marriage and the blessings we shared and our quiet and private moments, our solemn times and our times of tear-bringing laughter.

So it was that I put the big aluminum stew pot on the gas stove, poured in the frozen fruit and sugar, and boiled the last of the summer fruit, knowing that there would never be any more. I made attractive labels, made up a pot of Norma's labor and love for each of her children and each of her friends, and kept one for myself to be eaten alone with my memories.

When all we leave behind us when we quit this world has crumbled into dust, nothing can wipe away the sweet memory of the last of the summer fruit, and the loving hands that gathered it.

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