Timing is everthing

Memorial Day I decided to become a homemaker - the rhubarb patch in our backyard was calling to me. The week before I had made jam, but ...now I wanted to make a strawberry rhubarb pie. I have never made one before, but looked in my old red Betty Crocker 3-ring recipe book that I received for a wedding shower gift. The pie recipe pages have all lost their holes and sit in the back of the book. Many of the pages are spattered with dried flour and sugar bits. Yes, I do love to make pie. In the past few years, I have discovered the refrigerated rolled premade piecrusts. And when my cookbook and recipe expert Sandra from DesMoines told me "they were just about as good as a homemade pie crust IF you baste the top with melted butter and then sprinkle it with some sugar" -well, let me tell you-I haven't stirrerd up my own piecrust since receiving her advice. Those pie crusts are a staple in my refrigerator. The lone 1 qt. bag of frozen strawberries was also calling to me to be used. Abby and I had gone strawberry picking last summer, then came home and froze strawberries and made LOTS of great freezer jam. O.K., getting back to the recipe..as I looked for one for this type of pie, I decided I would have to create it using my wise years of baking expertise. Combining other pie recipes, I used
3 cups of chopped rhubarb, the package of thawed strawberries, 1 1/2 c. sugar, 1/4-1/3c flour, mixed together,dumped into the pie crust, 1 T. of butter dotted and the top crust put on, pinched and basted w/ 1+T melted butter and sprinkled w/sugar. Into the oven at 425degrees with my trusty piecrust ring on top. I then went about making other great things for supper. Deviled eggs, Wedged pototoes out on the grill, and good old hamburgers that Ty put his own kitchen spin to. Mixing up a batch of peach smoothies/ non-alcoholic for very pregnant Wendy...and then adding some malibu rum to the remainder. It was a perfect afternoon. We went out to the deck, where Abby and I had put up the canopy with a slight amount of frustration and watched the afternoon go by. The pool is almost clear. I have been working on it.
The rose bushes are in bloom and their fragrance wafts up onto the deck. We talked about Bruce.

Earlier in the day, I had gone to the Memorial Day parade. It was Matt's first volunteeer opportunity with the local police department. Back in December,the same week that we were getting Bruce's diagnosis, I had seen one of the local policemen who had taken Matt and I on a ride-along a few years ago. That ride-along was part of the citizens police acadamy we had attended. He asked me about Matt and I shared that he was bored, wanted to find something to do and we were trying to get him involved with his hometown ambulance garage. But...the ambulance garage really didn't want him hanging around. Since Matt can not do anything other than observe and answer a few questions yes and no, he is not capable of hold down a real job. A few days later a message on my cell from the police officer gave me good news. The River Falls PD was going to offer Matt a 'volunteer reserve office' position. If he wanted to be part of road patrol during parades and be part of some of the local police department educational opportunties he could. I just sobbed into the phone as I heard this message. Here I was, my life was falling apart around me, but there was a silver lining. Now, 6 months later, Matt was sitting at the intersection with an officer. He was given a radio to listen to and now had his own RFPD reserve officer cap! He was speechless. His next gig will be the BIKE RODEO in mid June. I wasn't caring for him yesterday, but since I am the conduit for this job, I wanted to be there. Matt and I had discussed going into the cemetary. He wanted to see where Bruce was buried. So, after the parade, we did just that.

In AFTER GOODBYE, by Ted Menten, he writes about how long one should grieve. He says and I agree that there is not one good answer. "For everything, there is a season. Nature shows us seasons of life and death everywhere we look. People need a season of grief. In this season,the seeds of rebirth are planted. What varies from person to person is the length of this season, the right time for harvest, and the time when rebirth comes. Just as the gestation period varies from creature to creature, the natural process of grieving varies from person to person." Just last week, I had felt great, seemed happier and thought to myself; I am over a hump of grief...but soon it swallowed me up again and I found myself in this labyrinth of somewhat familiar, yet unfamiliar surroundings. Menten, uses this metaphor to describe how grieving folk feel. Looking for something that feels and looks familiar. His phrase, "still wandering around inside my grief" fits how I feel. I know it will take me time to find my way out and through this time in my life.

The timer buzzed, I looked at the pie I had ignored and it was the most beautiful pie I had ever seen. I exclaimed, " I believe this is a blue-ribbon winner!" Later on, when we all bit into it, it was as delicious as it appeared. Yes, timing is everything. The pie had been in the oven just the right amount of time. Matt's little job with the PD is happening at the right time for him and for me. The pink roses that Bruce loved, bloomed just in time for Memorial Day that I could take up to his grave. And our first grandchild will be born in his or her own time. Menten puts it this way, "...a chick knows the exact oment to start pecking at its eggshell. Life is an instinct."

This soon to be grandmother, granny, gam-mah, gam-gam...will wait patiently to meet my first grandchild. SOON...SOON... and tomorrow the MOON will be BLUE!
Fondly, Deb

PS; Friday, I called my baking expert Sandra. She was just putting in her oven the coconut-cream pie she was baking for her husband's birthday. She hadn't made that pie since December 2, Bruce's birthday. That was his favorite pie too. She made it that day and then she and George drove 4 hours to hand-deliver the pie to Bruce at 8:30pm that night! As we talked on Friday, we commented on how we had been thinking about one another all day, an innate instinct that we at times ignore. Our visit on the phone was another perfectly timed event.