Grandmother pies

Are there grandmothers now who will give the children buckets, and instruct them to go out and pick some berries, bring them home, and she will make a pie for dinner?  Grandmothers who will  let those children wander the dirt roads between the cottages, even if they might fall into the brambles sometimes, and come home scratched but proud to have gathered part of the family dinner?

I visited the ocean today, where my Grama cared for us as children. I walked the beach, past the twin sisters rocks where my sister and I would stand while the tide came in. The beach was filled with people but no crabs in the pools around the rocks we used to call 'crab holes'.  It has been 20 years since my grama died, even as she lived to be 96. It has been 10 years since I lived near this beach in my fourth life.

After my walk, I went to the little lot I own, south of Cannon, my last connection with the coast. Blackberries overtake it like a plague. I cut vines and stacked them up for over an hour. Any work I do seems to never be enough. I left plenty of long uncut berry vine tentacles behind in order to make it back inland in time for dinner. On the drive home every blackberry thicket called out to me,  those wild boisterous, audacious Himalayan blackberries, covered with white blooms which will be berries in a few weeks. They were usually ripe for my mom's birthday on August 17.

Today I marked again my luck in having Amy, we called Brama. I called her only daughter on the cell phone and held it up to the waves at Silver Point, so she could hear her Mama's ocean once again. She may never see it again because she is failing in health and can't travel anymore. The sound of the sea on a cell phone may be the last she hears. This felt strange, and not strange at once. It is where I find myself now, where she finds herself. We all do the best we can.

I want to be a grandma who gives the child a bucket and says "Here, pick us some berries, and I will make a pie for dinner. We can go for a walk in the sunset later, and watch the moon rise over the ocean."