More Than A

Today I am sitting in Michigan the nation's leading producer of tart cherries. My coffee cup sits on the round green Ethan Allen table while I gaze at a Portmeirion bowl of fresh cherries

I am far from the city streets I once knew so well,

My thoughts go back from the Midwest where I now reside to the Fruit stalls lining Paddy’s Market in Hells Kitchen,

There were many many things the families sharing tenements didn’t own, or were obliged to “do without” in those never forgotten years.

Our small family, like others, survived with the help of regular ice deliveries from Tony, the faithful “Ice Man.” Still we always had the luxury of fresh fruit in season.

The produce stalls lined up like drummers along Ninth avenue where either (or sometimes both) Mom and Aunt Helen did their daily shopping.

Routinely, at 3 o’clock when Ellen and I arrived home from school in St, Paul’s, we quickly checked to see what fruit was now “In Season.”

Opening the pale blue wooden icebox door, we always found two identical wooden bowls of a current and perishable item.

We rarely competed, my sister or I, except when the cherry season arrived. While we enjoyed the Anjou pears, and the tart plums, they were never our favorite.

The red globes of cherry sweetness were the ones divided equally because of our childish excitement over their arrival.

Today my lovely bowl is quite full of that luscious crimson fruit. As I gaze at it, I do so wish my sister were closer and I could share some or perhaps (now being older and hopefully, kinder,) give all of them to her.

Although memories survived those days of yore, any uneaten fruit soon perished to be replaced with a different delicacy.

And today I must wonder if nature always provides a quiet lesson about our complicated journey in life and not always with a bowl of cherries.