About mid-July, 1976, my grandmother and I went outside, to the back of the garden, each of us carrying two mason jars. We giggled all the way: It was time to pick the raspberries.
The raspberry was, is, and always will be my favourite fruit. It was Grandma’s favourite, too, since she was a little girl. We liked them in pies and tarts. We liked them on top of ice cream. For dinner parties, my grandmother would make chocolate twigs and serve them with fresh raspberries for dessert. My grandmother made raspberry preserves; they were supposed to be for Christmas gifts, but they hardly ever made it to other people... because she rarely made enough. That was because of our favourite way to eat raspberries: Right off of the vine (Well, Grandma called them vines; to me, they’re more like stalks.). Carrying four jars out to the back of the garden was ambitious; normally, we’d be lucky if we filled two jars before we went inside, stomachs full and faces and fingers dripping with sweet-tart red juice.
We filled three jars with raspberries, even though it felt like we each had eaten three jars full of raspberries. We pelted one another with the overripe berries; we had little red blotches all over ourselves.
Grandma and I giggled and ran from the very back of the yard, where the raspberries grew, to the front of the house, just in time to see a pretty car backing out of her driveway. Walking toward my grandmother’s front door, suitcase in hand, was my mother’s Cousin Steve.
“Hey!” I squealed, putting my two jars (one empty) down on the driveway and running up behind him.
He turned around, big smile on his face. “There’s my sweetheart!”
Steve got down on one knee and held his arms out to me. I stopped short of hugging him and looked down at myself. I looked up at him through the hair that fell over my face. “I have raspberry juice all over myself,” I said in apology.
“I don’t care,” he said, pulling me in for a bear-like hug. “Auntie!” he said over my shoulder. He said something in Hungarian and started laughing.
I pulled back and frowned at him. I hadn’t understood what he said to my grandmother.
Still laughing, Steve said, “I was just saying, with the berries all over your faces, you could be twins!”
The three of us went inside. After Grandma and I washed up, I held a full jar out to Steve. He took a couple raspberries out and popped them into his mouth.
“These are swell,” he said. “Are you going to help your grandma make preserves?”
I shook my head. “I only get to watch.” I popped a raspberry into my mouth, imitating Cousin Steve. “Are you gonna help her?”
He shrugged and took a few more berries from the jar. “I can help you watch.”
My grandmother came in and took the jar away. “Don’t eat them all!” she said, taking a few for herself and giggling.
“Now, Auntie,” Steve said, “You and my Lady of the Green have had a bunch. I only took a few.”
My grandmother put a few into his hand. “You did not pick any of them,” she teased.
That evening, after dinner, Steve and I sat on the parlour floor while my grandmother watched television from the sofa. He’d brought finger-paints and big paper; we painted for an hour or so.
“Auntie,” Cousin Steve asked, “Could we maybe have raspberries for dessert, please?”
“No,” Grandma said. “I’ll never have enough for preserves if we keep eating them.”
Steve stood up. “Well, Sweetheart... Want to take a walk with me?”
Of course I did. I never turned down a walk with Cousin Steve. He liked to walk after dinner and smoke a cigarette. Usually, we walked out of the front door and either went to the beach and back, or around the block a couple of times.
This time, he led me through the kitchen, toward the utility room door.
When Steve picked up the first empty jar from the kitchen counter, he turned to me with a finger to his lips. Shhh.
I smiled. I knew what we were going to do.
He picked up a second jar, and handed it to me.
Once outside and heading toward the back of the garden, Cousin Steve said, “Now, no eating ‘em. They have to all go into the jars this time, Sweetheart.”
“Okay,” I whispered (There was no need to be quiet, but it felt right to lower my voice.).
We filled both jars. We moved really fast (and I remember thinking, “Gee, it goes by so much faster when you don’t eat the berries!”) and when we were done, Steve smoked a cigarette.
“Isn’t it nice that the raspberries come in twice a year?” he asked me.
I nodded, smiling. “They’re my favourite!”
“Mine, too,” he said. “When I was a boy, I helped your grandma pick them.”
“Really?” I took one of his hands and fidget-danced; I could never keep still. It used to drive my parents (and my Auntie V.) crazy. It made my grandmother nervous. Cousin Steve didn’t mind; a lot of times, he danced along.
“Yes,” he answered, giving me a twirl. “It was at the old house, mostly. Then, when your grandparents moved here, I got to help plant the garden. These raspberries,” he pointed toward the back of the garden, “All came from two or three plants from the old place.”
“All of them?” I asked, still dancing and switching to his other hand. I thought for a minute. “Was the garden at Grandma’s old house just as nice as this one?” I asked.
Steve shook his head. “No... That was tiny. This is much bigger. Much nicer.”
He bent down and kissed my cheek. “And this one has a Vuhn-essa in it!”
I giggled as we went back inside.
When my mother, my younger brother, Tadpole and I moved into my grandmother’s house in the summer of 1980 (just before I turned thirteen), the garden was not its usual self. My grandmother had been ill (Dementia, and she’d had a few strokes) and my Uncle Joe Bagga-Donuts, who lived just up the road, was having heart problems. Uncle Joe paid a neighbourhood kid to cut the lawn once a week, but there was no one to take care of the garden.
Brother #3, The Professor, was a professional landscaper (when he wasn’t a professional furniture builder/repairman). He offered to help with the lawn. My mother gave him free hand. He tore down the garden and planted grass. He tore out the raspberry plants. I didn’t speak to him for weeks. To me, ripping out the raspberries was like removing our grandmother from her own garden.
The next May, my grandmother passed away in a nursing home.
That June, the raspberries grew at the back of the garden. The Professor was stymied. I was thrilled. The plants bore no fruit, so he ripped them out.
The same thing happened the next year. Then, the raspberry plants pretty much stopped sprouting up altogether.
Years later (1999), Ken (my then-boyfriend, now-husband) and I moved into the old house with my mother and Tadpole on June first; we were having a little financial trouble and just needed a few months to get our act together. The first night there, long after Ken fell asleep, I walked outside to have a cigarette.
I was sad, and wondering if Ken and I had really done the right thing, with this temporary move into Grandma’s old house.
Tadpole came out from the utility room door. He lit up a cigarette and held up a small flashlight. “...Somethin’ I wanted to show ya,” he said, beckoning me with the flashlight. I followed him into the back yard, where the back of the garden used to be. I hadn’t been back there in years.
“Holy shit!” I yelled, and then covered my mouth. There were raspberry plants from one end of the yard to the other, all along the back fence... about four times the width of the original garden.
And there were berries... not ripe yet, but close.
I looked at my younger brother, my mouth hanging open.
Tadpole shrugged. “It’s still Grandma’s garden.”
In my heart, I knew that I was welcome at Grandma’s, and so was my future husband, Ken.
My cousin, M., who owned Grandma’s house, had to sell it. That was back in 2006, when my mom moved into the apartment next door to ours. They knocked down my grandmother’s house (actually, someone set it on fire first!) and put up a big duplex, no room for a garden.
Talking to old neighbours, I found out that no matter what they do, the raspberries come back every year. I chuckle whenever I hear it.
Grandma’s a feisty little thing... and she loves her raspberries.
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