“what anyone will remember is that we came.”

The Poem

What I Learned From My Mother - Julia Kasdorf

I learned from my mother how to love
the living, to have plenty of vases on hand
in case you have to rush to the hospital
with peonies cut from the lawn, black ants
still stuck to the buds. I learned to save jars
large enough to hold fruit salad for a whole
grieving household, to cube home-canned pears
and peaches, to slice through maroon grape skins
and flick out the sexual seeds with a knife point.
I learned to attend viewings even if I didn’t know
the deceased, to press the moist hands
of the living, to look in their eyes and offer
sympathy, as though I understood loss even then.
I learned that whatever we say means nothing,
what anyone will remember is that we came.
I learned to believe I had the power to ease
awful pains materially like an angel.
Like a doctor, I learned to create
from another’s suffering my own usefulness, and once
you know how to do this, you can never refuse.
To every house you enter, you must offer
healing: a chocolate cake you baked yourself,
the blessing of your voice, your chaste touch.

The Beverage
New Glarus Strawberry Rhubarb

Only a handful of subscribers to this newsletter live in Wisconsin (where New Glarus is sold), and this beer is a rare find even here. It’s a delight. It’s a bit of a sour, which is my most beloved variety of beer, but with a bright, happy sweetness bubbling over on top. It’s not a beer I’d have two of in a night, but they were a treat to drink in on my patio with a friend last Sunday night, an evening that was a little cool but still spring. Tonight, it’s about ten degrees warmer, summery but not hot. I’m going to go to the grocery store, cook dinner with the kitchen door, eat on the patio, and share the evening with a book and a beer. Maybe this one. We'll see what's nice and already cold.