It is the hottest summer on record;

the insurance company has just deemed my mother a bad financial prospect,

as though a human with cancer belongs on a balance sheet

and

I

am picking apricots.

I cry in the tree

on the top step of the ladder surrounded by brilliant orange globes–

the generosity of this singular tree overwhelms me,

knowing there are many other trees all over this valley showering others with similar abundance overwhelms me

This kind of harvest doesn’t happen every year, my friends tell me; I can't help but wonder if my mother will be alive for the next bumper crop,

Or,

will I ever see another year like this one, after all, 

it is the coolest summer of the rest of our lives.

this kind of harvest doesn’t happen every year, this kind of grief shouldn’t happen every year

and yet.

Later I will make 17 lbs of jam

catching my own self off guard when I reach into the box of recycled jars, pulling out a jar with my mother’s fading handwriting on the red lid cherry jam

Woman who taught me the secret delights of stone fruit while we picked buckets of plums to turn into syrup and jam, woman who taught me how to turn ripe and dripping peaches into the perfect cobbler (who I have never processed apricots with), woman who taught me to beekeep–

my mother is a complex woman who encouraged me own complexities while attempting to teach me not to wear my heart on my sleeve–

I cry imagining the sound of the bees pollinating each individual flower so that it could grow into these perfect orbs

I cry at the cutting board

every small gem offering a stone heart for plucking, with skin so thin it can remain in place

a lesson about how staying tender and open will lead to sweetness

I cry over the boiling pot

I cannot stop thinking of the bees

of the heatwaves

of the boiling ocean

of my dying mother

and

yet,

somehow,

In this season of tears,

Is the surprising sweetness in the abundance of endings