The Heirloom: A Memoir

I hold the 1908 Ball canning jar, the blue glass smooth against my fingertips. The Formica countertop in Mom's kitchen produces a dull pain in my knees as I stretch over the refrigerator to capture this prize. Earlier my mother had asked me to pick something as a memento while we played cards. Perhaps she felt death was close in winter, the night too dark, the cold creepy as it swept through the windows. Now the six decks of cards lie discarded on the tabletop. We've completed five hands of hand and foot canasta. Mom and Dad have gone to bed while I wait for my husband to warm the car.

I discover I hold magic in my hand. The magic is held underneath the jar's bail and wire closure like a remnant of Pandora's Box. Because Dad wanted only these jars when my grandmother died, they take me back in time to when I saw her last. She was in her late seventies and lived in a two-story farmhouse inside the city limits of New England, North Dakota. Dad explained to that the family had done a lot of work to make the place livable, things like pouring a cement foundation and installing indoor plumbing. But what I remember best is the coal chute, probably because it was always locked shut. Located right there next to her garden, both the doors opened outward and there were rickety stairs into the cellar we never got to test. I open the jar and inhale musty air almost as if I were restoring some ancient mummy. An image appears in my mind.

Grandma walks out into a less than perfect day, not winter but a summer day long ago. Clouds hang bluish-gray with the sun blazing behind and wind building to clap the screen door closed and open. Her cotton shift is covered by an apron tied round her waist. She raises a hand up to protect her eyes from the sudden glare. Then she goes into the garden to fetch what she needs.

Tomatoes are staked up tall with swelling green fruits hanging all over and stalks still bearing yellow flowers. Corn grows quite a bit taller than the knee-high size expected in early July. Carrots are spied by their frothy heads, cukes sprawl wherever they can reach, beans twist up poles, the wispy remains of pea vines are tossed into the compost pile.