in the shade of the old apple tree

The house I grew up in right in Chicago's South Side had a large, old apple tree. Every single time my grandpa fitz came over, he would sing 'in the shade of the old apple tree. . . " He knew all the words. as I was the only girl in my fam until I was 14, my grandpa always sang to me.

AND when my now 35 year old daughter was growing up, she and I would, every fall, beginning when she was one and I still married to her dad but we kept the tradition going, we'd go to a place that let us pick apples -- for a price. With her dad, we would go to an arboretum and just buy a bushel and then bake bake bake pies.  When it was just she and I, we gathered apples at orchards that let one pay to do so. Free falls on the ground were cheaper. And then we'd bake many, many pies. I had a jillion pie tins from some restaurant that my great aunt Effie Carlota (on my mom's side, my maternal grandma's baby sister) has saved to be frugal instead of returning the pie tin for the small deposit. When she gifted me a couple hundred pretty sturdy pie pans, my daughter and I exchanged gleeful looks for we knew they were better than the cheap alum foil ones we bought . . . for our annual open house. At our annual open house, held all day on a weekend day after a full day of baking as many pies as we could (30 at least, some years more) and most got to take home a piece. And so many loved having the tin, which was embossed with the logo of some popular local place.

And for many years, in fresh apple season, I never went to anyone's home without bringing a homemade apple pie. When it was for company, I used to also bring cinnamon ice cream, which was hard to find. Now a type one diabetic, no pie for me. I barely eat apples.

But the hundreds of apple pies I have are alive in my etheric.

Oh: when she was very tiny, my daughter 'helped' by sucking apple slices covered in cinnamon and sugar, before they had been put in a pie. She was the taste tester and proud of her job. She would suck lots of slices but never eat them. I guess I tossed those slices but I don't remember. I feel such tenderness and love, for myself and for her, recalling her delight in sucking that cinnamon and sugar, feeling proud to help, licking her fingers. And I feel, painfully, the growing heart failure, the heavy toll her choice to shun me for 16+ years costs me. My pain does not diminish. It grows. It changes. And it does not grow in all aspects of my being. But I feel the loss of her literally tearing my heart down, central to my heart failure.

now I am crying, time to stop.