Liam woke me up early this morning, 6 a.m. We had a simple breakfast of cantaloupe and blueberries. I had my mug of hot tea. I stripped him down to a diaper and put some junky clothes on myself. We each equipped ourselves with an appropriately sized bowl. My father got out a small bench. And we started picking sweet cherries. There's new growth on the sweet cherry tree. Liam can actually pick them just standing on the ground.
And the memories started - at the sweet cherry tree it was of my brothers maniacal will to pick more cherries. One year they put entire ladders on top of the picnic table. I was suddenly so alone, picking the cherries without my siblings. And with that realization I decided I had enough cherries, since I'd have to wash and pit them myself, too.
I went inside, started the water in the large basin of the sink and put the red strainer in the small side, placing the compost bucket off to the right for the pits and the bad cherries. As I plunged my hands into the water and grabbed the cherries, I thought of my mother, in her cherry-pitting dress, and those hands. Two years ago, Mark took pictures of her doing just this work, mostly her hands. She really did have such beautiful hands.
I looked up, out the little kitchen window. My father had one of the big white buckets and was washing my car. My little moosh was beside him, in just his diaper, trying to figure out what he was doing. Which took me back to the photos of my eldest brother at that age, helping my father clean the car. I dashed out with the camera - if any child of mine is going to be photographed, it's the eldest.
I looked back down at the cherries - I still have the sour cherries to pick and pit - and realized my hands were trembling. I best write this down and get it out of my head before it overwhelms my day.
