Pits and Grit

The phone rang after midnight. My dad had suffered a major heart attack.

As one of five daughters and a doctor, I traveled to stay with my mother in Delaware while Dad was recovering in the ICU. I met with his physicians, sat with him during the day, and shepherded Mom to see him.

Mom and I stayed at a shabby on-site hospital hotel. In her 70s with multiple medical problems of her own, she struggled walking long distances.

Three times a day, I pushed her in a wobbly wheelchair to visit Dad, back and forth through the dimly lit half-mile underground tunnel connecting the hotel to the hospital.

After breakfast. Then after lunch. And again, after dinner.

In between, I’d drive Mom to a local restaurant. French onion soup was popular at the time, and she tried a bowl at each place we ate.

There were several. Places.

I quickly learned not to sit in the first booth or chair the wait staff offered. For Mom, it was either too close to the kitchen, or to the front door, or to the service table, or to some other diner’s table.

After day three, I just stood and waited until Mom sat. Shuffled in her seat. Then looked up at the staff and asked to be moved to a “better” table.

Every time.

After a week of that routine, with Dad stable but still recovering, Mom decided it was time for us to check on the family farm where they still lived.

I drove her an hour and a half to arrive late afternoon as the sun was setting, casting long shadows over the shaggy lawn. Branches from four ancient peach trees drooped their spindly arms toward the ground, laden with velvety, ripened fruit.

I looked forward to visiting my childhood home. Emotionally and physically exhausted, I couldn’t wait to collapse on my old bed, covered in a cotton pink gingham coverlet and still adorned with stuffed animals and dusty dolls.

That was not to be.

Nope. Because there were peaches.

“Waste not, want not!” Mom said as she tied a faded apron around her waist.

“It’s late, Mom. Can we do this tomorrow?” I asked. (Actually, I whined with a hope-infused voice.)

“No, I want to get back to your father first thing tomorrow morning, so we need to pick these peaches now. I’ll get started. Go get the ladder from the shed.”

She didn’t ask for my help. As was the way. It was a farm.

Anyone in shouting distance became part of the labor pool.

I became a petulant teenager. Sighing loud and long, so Mom could hear me, I slammed the screen door as I left to get the ladder. But I followed her orders, just like the old days.

Pinkie, the stuffed elephant (she was pink!), and my bed would just have to wait.

Mom and I pulled all the ripe fruit off the branches as the sky grew dark. Flies buzzed around our heads as juice dripped from our fingers. I climbed up and down the rickety ladder multiple times, losing count of the baskets we filled.

Finally, we were done.

We were not.

In the kitchen, we washed, peeled, and pitted bushels of the soft pink fruit. Gleaming glass jars emerged from the steaming water bath. Sweat trickled down our noses and backs.

Mom worked through aching feet, sore shoulders, water-soaked hands, and swollen knuckles to finish all those peaches.

She never complained.

She kept me laughing with stories of the townspeople, her latest projects, collecting rocks while traveling with Dad (she had become an amateur lapidarist), stories of her youth and of mine.

Sleepy birds had flown back to their nests hours ago. Fireflies winked, crickets sang, and cicadas rubbed their wings, offering a light and sound show while we labored at the large farmhouse sink.

By 2 a.m., totally spent, we sank down at the old plywood kitchen table and shared the silence and a steaming cup of coffee.

Peaches didn’t pause ripening waiting for our life crisis to pass.

Mom smiled. Mission accomplished.

I looked at her in admiration. I could barely move, even though I popped what felt like a half bottle of aspirin.

I fell into my childhood bed, yawning, and pulled Pinkie close. We’d get up in the morning to go back to the hospital.

As I rolled over, I heard a creak on the stairs.

Mom came over, brushed my hair back with her roughened hands, and kissed me on the forehead.

She smelled like peaches.

For more stories about mother’s check out Finder’s Keepers and Palm Reader

If this story lingers, I’d love to hear your thoughts.