The littlest of the kids helped pick the berries from our generous neighbor's garden. The corn starch needed for the recipe was borrowed from the neighbor across the street. Each of the kids helped bake it in some way -- cutting strawberries, making the crust, mixing the filling, whipping the cream.
We enjoyed it for snack tonight, piled high with that fresh whipped-up cream. And I felt grateful for the many hands that contributed to its goodness. Amazing even.
Yet I couldn't pick the berries, or make the pie, or even eat it without thinking about the last strawberry pie I made.
It was June 25, 2013.
The day had started with this...
By the time we were done picking and loaded back in the van, I was done. With a capital D.O.N.E. It was maybe 10:00 in the morning. It wasn't what had happened at the strawberry farm, but everything surrounding it. We were in the second week of being out of our old house, but not yet in our new one. I had spent many days apart from my husband, solely responsible for the kids in an environment without any routine. I was exhausted. I was emotional. I was anxious about getting to our new home.
And all I wanted to do -- to feel some sense of normalcy -- was to pick strawberries and bake a pie. (I had somewhat reluctantly come to terms with the fact that there was no way, no how, I was going to get to make any jam.)
But a pie. I was determined for a pie.
I called my sister Michele from right there in the parking lot of the strawberry farm, and tried explaining all of this through my sobbing.
Her response: "Bring the kids here. Drive here right now. We will figure it out."
I came to find out later that she couldn't understand a word I was saying. Yet she took on her blubbering sister, with my four over-tired, out-of-routine, no sense of home, been in the van for hours and hours children.
She amended her afternoon plans to include me. She rallied her kids - my dear nieces and nephew - to be in charge of their cousins for the day.
I borrowed a sun dress and shoes, and off we went for several hours. A lunch with our sister Danielle. Followed by a behind the scenes tour of a nearby theater at which Danielle was performing.
We laughed. I cried. It was wonderful.
That night, I made a strawberry pie. I used the berries my littles had picked that morning. I borrowed a pan and all of the other ingredients from my sister. She wrote down the recipe for me. It baked in the oven of a house that other friends generously opened to us for several weeks as we were in between homes.
That pie I made on June 25 of last year, and we ate for breakfast on June 26, tasted amazing.
Amazing with generosity. Amazing with gratitude. Amazing with humility.
I thought of all of this as I ate today's pie. The pie many hands contributed to on June 12, 2014. And I cried. Even a year later, I feel very deeply how hard that time had been. And how important it was that people were there. And still are, in so many ways.
I've tried to be like that - to be there - in this new house, in this new community.
Maybe that's what it's all about. Being good to each other. Not always understanding the words being blubbered, but knowing what is being said. Inviting them over, without their having to ask. Being very good, when it is most needed.
With extra whipped cream on top, thank you.
