THE LAST JAR OF JELLY

My late wife was an old-fashioned girl in some ways. She took many of the baking and cooking skills she had learned from her mother, and put them into practice. Every year we grew a garden, and she would can vegetables and jellies, from the produce that the garden supplied. I always remember the jars of tomatoes she would can every year. She would line them all up on the kitchen counter, after filling them, and we would all sit around and wait for that “ping” as each lid sealed. Then, a few days later, they went into the pantry—the celebration was over. After she died, I canned a few jars myself, for old times’ sake, but it just wasn’t the same.

But yesterday, as I was cleaning out the pantry, I came across a jar of jelly that, in of itself, was no surprise because we grew strawberries and raspberries and she had made a lot of jelly. However, this one was special because it was chokecherry, and I didn’t think there was any left. You see, one day I took my old lab Gus for a walk, and on this country road we found bushes loaded down with Chokecherries. I knew they were there, but usually someone else beat me to the picking. So on that warm, late summer day, I went home, got a plastic pail, and filled it up with the fruit. When I presented the pail full of berries to her—expecting praise—all I got was scorn and a rebuke, “Do you know how much work it is to make chokecherry jelly?” She went on and on about the pits, and the straining, and finally I just took old Gus and left for a quieter place. That’s what garages are for.

A couple of days later I came home from town and there, on the kitchen counter, were a few jars of chokecherry jelly, freshly canned. I thanked her for that and she told me, “Never again.” Gradually I used up all of the jelly and went on to eat the other jellies, just glad that for a short time, I had had my beloved chokecherry jelly. It was shortly after that when she took sick and the canning stopped. I think I hid that jar of jelly because I didn’t want to share it with the grandkids, and then I forgot about it. Yesterday, I found it while cleaning out the pantry. My first impulse was to not open it because it was irreplaceable. Then, on second thought, I knew in my mind that it would just go to waste that way and that was no way to honor her. So this morning I made some toast, and carefully opened up that jar of jelly. I’ve tasted better, but after all, it’s been three or four years since it was canned. But then, it wasn’t about the taste, was it?

No, it wasn’t about the taste at all. It was about the love that made her can those berries for me even though she didn’t want to. It was about loosening that lid yesterday, when I knew in my heart that the last person—the last hand-- who had tightened that lid on, had been hers. It wasn’t about the jelly at all. It was about her. You know when you get married you say those words, “until death do you part.” I have found that death hasn’t really parted us; it’s only made it harder to communicate. The death they were speaking of wasn’t just her death. It will only come about when we are both gone. As for now if you come to my house; don’t expect any chokecherry jelly to be served.