A Harvest of Years

Yesterday was one of those rare, golden days, a day when I reaped the bounty of years gone by. Dad planted some grape vines a long time ago; I don’t even remember how many years ago. Yesterday, I gathered what he had painstakingly planted. His great-grandchildren will be beneficiaries of those lovely grapes made into jelly. That’s, let me see, four generations. Isn’t it that way with many of the good things we enjoy? Freedom, for instance. Others planted freedom in this great Nation of ours. Today, we enjoy what they painstakingly worked for. Christianity too. We are free to worship God as we choose because of the sacrifice and determination of many who have gone before.

A wren serenaded me as I poked vines aside. A breeze meandered through. Sunshine on the glistening purple grapes outshone any amethyst or garnet I’ve ever seen. Some of the grapes had dried because I couldn’t get over to Tahlequah to pick them, having been in the hospital. But most of them were ready to fall off the vine and go home with me. Memories as well as grapes filled my sack as I picked, memories of past times in Mom and Dad’s yard and, of course, thoughts of my parents who lived there.

Richard and Linda, my brother and sister-in-law, are a part of those memories and visiting with them sort of connected past to present. We had a nice time, a nice lunch, and the whole time, we never stopped talking. Can you believe it?

Then I met Mary Alice and her daughter Gwen. The Redmen Shoppe sat on the corner when Mary Alice and I were teens.  It isn’t called that any more and instead of selling books along with the malts and Cokes, it dishes out delicious pizza and other food.  My friend and her family live in South Carolina while my family and I claim Arkansas as our home. How do you catch up on more than forty years? You talk non-stop. And that’s what we did.

As I drove back to Arkansas, my car was filled with gratitude as well as grapes. It had been one of those rare times, a golden day when past and present met, a harvest of years.

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