The Tuesday I finally understood my mother

She used to keep every jar. Rinsed, dried, lined up on the top shelf like a small glass congregation, and I thought it was a kind of fear.

This Tuesday I finished a jar of honey and stood there with it in my hands for a long time, and I did not throw it away. I washed it. I dried it. I put it on the shelf.

It was not fear. It was a belief that something would be needed again, and that she would be the one who had it. That is not hoarding. That is hope with a lid on it.