Harvest Time

The anniversary of my open knee surgery is fast approaching. It gives me pause, since during the summer months I find myself doing more running instead of less, but twenty-one years ago that whole thing came to an abrupt halt when I jumped out of a perfectly good swing and flew through the air to land on one leg - my left. I don't recommend this unless you have already received some sort of bionic upgrade to the joints in your leg. The operation and recuperation took me out of circulation for several months.
More to the point, the few weeks were spent in my mother's basement. The main advantage to this setup was twofold: I could stay cool down there, out of the heat of the summer, and I could watch TV whenever the pain would not allow me to sleep. Which was a lot. My mother and I have always been close, but these days proved to be the test of our collective patience. We have plum jelly to thank for saving our relationship.
When I was finally mobile enough on crutches to hop up the stairs one morning for breakfast, I found my mother waiting with several options. One of these was toast. "Would you like jelly on that?" she asked.
"What kind do you have?" Now that I am a parent myself, and my wounds have sufficiently healed, I understand that I was already heading down the wrong road by asking.
"I've got some plum jelly that's very good."
"Don't you have any grape?" I asked, petulant little snot that I was.
"Have you ever had plum jelly?"
A better man than myself would have taken this opportunity to sample whatever this woman had to offer me, after weeks of waiting on my hand and foot. But instead I went ahead and pushed the conversational car right off the cliff. "Mom, I'm twenty-four years old. Even if I haven't ever tasted plum jelly before, I think I should be able to figure out what I would like all on my own."
That, as they say, was pretty much that. I ate my toast with a little bit of butter, and within the next day or so, I was headed back to my own apartment across town. Over the years we tend to trot this story out when we are discussing the challenges of raising children and who use their gift of speech to challenge their parents. I'm eternally grateful for the care I received back in 1986. My recovery would have been more difficult by powers of ten if she hadn't opened up her house to me.
This afternoon I found myself on my hands and (repaired) knees in my front yard, scooping up all the plums that had fallen from the tree. I wondered what I was going to do with all these yellow plums. When God gives you lemons, make lemonade. When God gives you a yard full of plums, thank your mother for putting up with you.