Connections

My grandmother had two wonderful apricot trees in her back yard. I lived with her when I was a child. We waited for the apricots to get ripe. Then we would eat and eat and eat our fill. There were many more than we could eat, so we put them in a screen cage with shelves to dry in the sun. The dried apricots were kept in tins in a cupboard in the basement. Whenever I think of dried apricots, I think of my grandmother and her love and companionship. The apricots meant a lot to others also. My aunt and her husband and little girl lived in London in 1942 and 43. My aunt was frightened to be so far away from home. She lived in fear of the bombings each day she was there. My grandmother packed up tins of apricots and mailed them to her. The apricots were nourishment to them when fruit was not available. But they were much more than that. They meant someone loved my aunt. Someone thought of her and cared for her, even though she was far away. They were nourishment for the soul. The apricots kept the generations connected.