Jar of jam

Yesterday I was wandering around the shopping centre with Sara, looking for knitting needles and the right wool. I want to remind myself how to knit. The perfect hobby for the cold days ahead.

The shop has everything, even “home made” food. By the till, Sara picks up a small jar of jam and shows it to me.

And without thinking, I reply that I don’t buy jam, because for me jam means food we always have at home, food that is really made at home.

I grew up with the smell of jam cooking, with the clinking of “sterilised” jars being disinfected in the hot oven so they would be ready to take in that family nectar.

When I say jam, I see my grandpa sitting in the garage by the wood stove for hours, stirring the precious substance so it won’t burn, with such devotion as if the whole winter food supply of a family of six depended on exactly those circular movements at precisely calculated intervals.

The smell of cooking plums and apricots mixes with the smell of rain, which always comes with jam-making season.

I hear the voice of my grandma, who comes down now and then to check on the whole process and taste whether “it needs more sugar”, and we children usually get a say in this very important decision too. But grandma has the final word, because she is the expert in making jam, and, my goodness, in making slatko too (our whole-fruit preserve).

Once the verdict is in that the cooking is done, the huge pot, which is used for nothing else, is carried into the house, and that’s when grandma’s next speciality takes the stage: filling the jars and sealing them airtight, after which not a single jar ever went mouldy.

For us children, that’s when the hard part begins: no more tasting at that “fresh” stage, because there are still jars left from last year.

And in winter, everyone knows: to every one of our questions “is there anything sweet?” the automatic answer is “the pantry is full of jam”.

Back then, as children, we were cross about answers like that. And now I would give anything to hear those words just one more time.

A jar of jam is family.

A jar of jam is childhood.

A jar of jam is memories.

And no, you can’t buy them in a shop.

This morning I get up early, before everyone else, because my body doesn’t care that it’s Saturday and I could sleep in.

Ready and raring to go.

I switch on the coffee machine.

I put bread in the toaster.

I take the butter and jam out of the fridge.

Like every morning.

While the coffee slowly cools in the cup, I spread butter on the hot toast and, without thinking, open the jar.

It’s empty.

I try to remember when it “made its way to us” and realise that this jar of apricot jam may well have been the last one grandma made.

And, as if struck by lightning, I realise that today would have been her birthday.

And I have no jam left.