.... it has been a poignant and beautiful day......... making marmalade..
This has been a day long coming, discussions about making marmalade have been going for over a year and today Jimmy and I went and symbolically made marmalade.
My parents have always made marmalade and bramble jelly - can´t really remember any other jams being made, but throughout my childhood the rituals of making marmalade in January/February and bramble jelly in August/September were very closely observed leading to jars of both always being there for breakfast for the rest of the year. Even after we left home, we would be given jars when we visited or were visited.
So my parents now 90 and 93 have continued to make marmalade every year.... bramble jelly involves hedgerow brambling and this has not been on for them for a few years ... and marmalade has been getting harder and harder as their frailty made it very difficult. The prospect of super-hot pans were very worrying from a distance - Rob taking a watching brief the last couple of years.
However at Christmas it emerged that my Father felt, strongly, that although Rob had been around he hadn't really understood how to make marmalade properly! So it was agreed that I would help them make marmalade this year in order to learn how it should be done. I had helped as a child/teenager but on a 'do this/that' basis... though with fond memories - which were there today for me... how blessed am I....
However back to the story... my parents being my parents, didn't wait for me and have made 2 lots on their own already this year - amazing - anyway the first lot was hard and the second lot was a bit of a disaster, and obviously caused upset with half the oranges being unused. This was my opportunity to insist that I really wanted to learn how to make marmalade and that these should be saved until I could go over. The first time was today and I went, wonderfully accompanied by Jimmy.
... and we made marmalade - as instructed by my beautiful frail and increasingly sleeping father.. he is holding on because he still has things to do for my mother - like being there - staying alive - but he is so tired, he is sleeping increasingly.
My Mum is being so strong - recognising - though forgetting - she now knows and can talk about him staying alive for her - she's not ready to go - driving the car and swimming 35 lengths every morning... but she also knows and can talk - but with care and love - that her world is his world - their shared world of over 65 years... buff..... she recognises this dependence but she is so amazingly strong - despite fighting with her memory and her fear...... what an amazingly wonderful woman my Mother is...........
... and their shared world includes making marmalade!!
So Jimmy and I went over early, and made marmalade ... my Father was very insistent on the right way of doing things - he was passing on a legacy - my Mother recognising this - and went to the front room - leaving us alone with Dad - a rare and special concession.
The instructions were spoken with difficulty - and Jimmy and I muddled along - wrong type of oranges, too many, not enough/too much sugar, wrong sequence of things, uncertainty of what we were supposed to be doing, not helped by me cutting my thumb on one of my Father's razor sharp knifes quite early on!!
Anyway we made wonderful marmalade... beautiful generationally bonding, memory legacy, re-affirming joyous jam!!!! My Mum said to Jimmy .... when you're an old man making marmalade - you'll remember making it for the first time at your long dead grand-parents home.... buffffff!!!
The unspoken was..... that they will never make marmalade again....... bufff... grief needs to be recognised but not dwelt in.....
