Rosemary’s Rhubarb: A Different Kind of My Town Monday Post
My mother-in-law loved rhubarb. But she really loved springtime. Because springtime meant fresh local rhubarb, and that meant rhubarb pie. I think that she loved making the pies for her son and husband more than she loved the unique sweet-tart confection.
Since I planted for both of us, we always talked about what to put in the garden. Besides the usual tomatoes (pronounced to-mah-toes), beans, and squash, she would tell me how much she loved new potatoes with the dirt still on them, mesclun greens, blueberries and raspberries fresh from the garden. But what she really wanted was rhubarb. Rhubarb still warm from the sun. So I planted some. Over and over again. Each spring I would wander out to the garden searching for signs of rhubarb. And each spring, when my mother-in-law would ask me, I would shake my head and sigh. “Well, luv,” she would say, “there is always next year.” And so it would go.
My mother-in-law died suddenly last July, before the tomatoes were ripe, and before we had the opportunity to plant again. But this spring, as I sloshed my way out to the garden, I glanced over to the place where I perennially planted rhubarb. There it was, Rosemary’s Rhubarb.
So this year, these hands and this heart will honor the woman who called me her daughter-in-love. I shall make a rhubarb pie.
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My Town Monday is where folks like you and me share a bit about their lives in the places they call home.
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I have said that my spouse and I chose each other, and that the rest of the family was thrown in for free. My mother-in-law was a gift to me, wrapped in love and an English accent.
I have mixed feelings on this day of days. I am reminded that I am a motherless child and that there are so many things I would ask my mom if she were here. I can still hear her voice on the phone, “Hi, Doll.” And I can see the young mother with 2 daughters making grilled cheese sandwiches to go with the tomato soup that came out of the red and white can. I think of the woman who witnessed this daughter’s journey for independence and to find her own way. The woman who didn’t understand the choices her daughter made and had her own struggle to accept them. The woman who loved her granddaughters unconditionally.





