When I Say Raspberries

I pity the children who grow up never knowing the rapture of finding themselves in a raspberry patch hidden in tall bushes of lush green branches laden with those bright red berries that slip away so easily  into fingers and then into the mouth. This experience in childhood is something rare and beautiful to carry into later life.

That’s why I can stand before rows of square clear plastic containers of raspberries in a market and feel an almost sacred sense of awe that those perfect creations were so recently enjoying the sun and shade of the berry patch. What must it be like to be a raspberry clinging to its mother branches? Can the berry know the reason for its joy and the supreme sacrifice of its future? Why does it let go so easily?

In my own country childhood I picked raspberries. The task was so much easier than picking strawberries where I had to bend down low. In the raspberry patch I could stand up and feel both tall and dwarfed by the bushes. Two of my granddaughters, Erin and Katie, know the feeling. They visited my cousins in Minnesota with me one summer when the raspberries were in season. To this day the mention of Verna and Glen bring delighted smiles to their faces. “Oh, I remember them! They were the ones with a raspberry patch in their back yard!”

It is said that as we grow older (and riper?) we can slip into childhood again. I can. Halls of memories come alive like those bright berries on the bushes. I want to speak of them but I know I can never do them justice or translate their feelings to anyone else. At this moment I am sitting up in bed writing on the tray where the bowl of cereal and raspberries was. Words now take the place of breakfast berries who have gone into the “whale’s belly” like Jonah. 

In the order of life I feel like a raspberry, nearly, but not quite, ready for the picking. Life is each day becoming sweeter and richer in color and taste. It’s losing the sharp acidity of its greener days when it knew more certainty, and opinion and when harsh criticism sometimes held sway. 

Getting older, for me, means reflection on the goodness of life. Sorrows only serve to turn us to higher, more permanent joys. I sense it is the calendar I can blame for my feeling like a ripe raspberry this morning. Christmas carols play on my bedroom radio and gather in the years past. At the same time they reach into the unseen future which I can only guess about. The shining light in the eyes of my great grand-babies gives me Christmas joy. Such promise there! They’ll have their Christmases throughout many years too, their own bright memories. My own future, and even theirs in time, means giving up and letting go of Earth's cradle when the time is ripe. Giving up to what? A world more bright? Therein lies the wonder. 

If I could, this Christmas, I’d be so glad to give every one of my great grandies a raspberry patch experience!