A Spoon Full of Love
In honor of National Peanut Butter Day I thought I'd share one of my fave stories from my late Father, the biggest peanut butter fan I know.
My poor peanut allergy friends may want to look away.
Growing up there were always certain food staples we had in the house. We may have run out of milk or bread from time to time but we never ever ever ran out of peanut butter. Seriously. I would often catch my dad in the kitchen with the jar and a spoon full of peanut butter. He wasn't a sweets kind of guy, he was more of a Marlboro Man. So I thought it was funny how childlike my tough guy, serious Dad seemed sneaking a treat.
One day after ordering a peanut butter shake at our favorite ice cream shop on a family vacation in Tennessee. I asked him, "what is it with the peanut butter Dad, don't you ever want to try another flavor?"
His eyes sparkled as he began to tell me about the first time he'd ever had the creamy treat.
My Dad was born during the Great Depression in 1930. (Don't start doing the math, I came along very late in his life.) Having a Dad so much older than other parents was very different in many ways. He'd seen and experienced things other parents had not. He was born in Possum Holler, North Carolina in a small shack of a house. He grew up very poor as pretty much everyone from that time and place did. He had fond and funny memories of his family, but it was also a very difficult time. He told me how they had very little to eat and often times dinner consisted of just lard smeared on a piece of bread. It broke my heart to think of this little green eyed boy so hungry and yet so thankful for what he had.
One day while he was playing in a field near his home, he came across a tin can. I think he must have been about 5, my son's age now. The good little boy that he was, he took the mystery tin straight home to Mama. When he held it in the air to show her, she snatched it out of his hand and quickly looked around. She asked him "where on earth did you get this?!" He replied he had found it in the field. (He told me he thought it must have been a soldiers ration or something like that.) Without saying another word, his mother turned to the counter and began to open the tin. When she turned back around she had a spoon in her hand and she stuck it straight in to his mouth. "FIREWORKS!" That's what my Dad said it felt and tasted like. Fireworks went off in this little boys mind when he tasted peanut butter for the first time. She implored him not to tell anybody outside the house what he had found.
After nothing but lard sandwiches and an aching belly, can you imagine what a spoon full of peanut butter must have been like!
When I think of this special mother-son moment, I get teary eyed. I don't know why it touches me so. I guess I just understand how something so small can mean so much and how it bonded them. When I picture my Dad standing at the counter of my childhood home, with a spoon in his hand, I imagine he was thinking of that moment too. Thinking about his childhood and growing up with nothing and appreciating everything.
While I don't share my father's affinity for peanut butter, though I like it just fine, you can bet I will always have it on my shelf. And occasionally, I will sneak a spoon full and remember that life is good if you appreciate the small things.