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When I'm with my 11-year-old granddaughter Meagan, I try to be the kind of grandmother that I had and loved. Take yesterday, for instance:

The sign said: "Blueberries. You Pick". I looked at Meagan and I thought about my grandmother.

More than words painted on a board alongside a road in Central Florida, the sign grabbed at me and brought more than a memory. It was a sign, a part of me, one of the many pieces of chain that links the present day me to my childhood.

It was the connection. Shoot, connection was my Grandma. Everything connection to make our lives complete.

Now, it was my subconscious simmering and rocking back-and-forth like the metal gadget on her pressure cooker (starting slowly and continuously picking up pace until the rapid rocking and hissing back and forth became a screaming spewing spin; I watched until she made us leave the kitchen "just in case the lid should blow" she'd say with a laugh). This canning thing she did was truly connection.

I gazed at the waist-high rows sitting about a half-a-football field length from the road. This scene didn't look anything like the strawberry fields back in Arkansas, but the image in my eye was close-to-the-sand rows and rows and rows of strawberries. And I saw a little girl plowing between those rows on her hands and knees stopping here and there, picking a nearly fist-size berry, blowing sand of, then putting it in her mouth and chewing slowly to savor the tangy-sweet red juices. Every now and then Grandma would look back at me and say, "Patsyann, cover your head." The hat I'd dropped rows back had long disappeared. And Grandma didn't say anything when we went to pay for our produce and I had so little in my basket. She just laughed that deep-rooted laugh of hers and handed the field tender an extra quater. And I don't really think she did any canning as the results of our day of picking. But the awesomeness of it all: the heat on my head, the taste on my tongue, Grandma's voice and the knowing look in her eyes is preserved deeply in my heart and brightens the moment with a sunny then-and-now connection.

Rather than get carried away here, let me take you back to blueberries and the SIGN.

"Blueberries. You Pick." The sign was an omen.

"Hey, want to pick blueberries?" I glanced at Meagan.

"A-huh."

I turned from the pavement onto the sandy trail that led to a field behind a recently constructed blue house.

"Is this somebody's house?" she asked, gazing from the notepad she was drawing on. (Already she wants to be an artist and a writer!)

"That's somebody's house. This is their farm. We're allowed in. Remember the sign?"

We eagerly bought pails and wandered between the thick rows. Watching Meagan gather clusters of plump ripe berries from branches warmed my soul. It was the connection.

In awe, I watched Meagan's stained purple fingers reach into her pail and bring out a nice plump berry.

And I wondered: Will this taste saver in her being to someday surface like the strawberries had surfaced in me.

Learn more about this author, Patricia Lieb.
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