“Thank you, Lord!” Mom’s voice rings across time like no time has passed at all.
I stand in my cluttered kitchen. She wouldn’t approve of it. Cluttered kitchens are not tolerated. A giant silver canner straddles two stove eyes, gathering heat momentum to sliced and juiced homegrown tomatoes from a little garden we planted in our backyard. Empty canning jars, rims cleaned carefully with just a pinch of salt sit lined up on the dining room table. I stir the tomatoes with a long-handled bamboo spoon, careful not to let any stick. “Once you let that happen,” I hear her tell me, “they’re ruined.”
When the bubbling commences, the timer starts. The kitchen is hot because I’ve turned off the heat pump, the way she turned off all the fans. “You can’t let the jars get too cold or they’ll bust when you pour in the tomatoes,” she warns me years after I watched her when I was a young teen.
My timer chimes and I turn off the stove, scooting the canner carefully to the other two stove eyes. My husband, imported from the Midwest, corrects me every time I call them stove eyes—he calls them burners—but we’re not cooking on gas and we’re in the South, my South, and I’ve always heard them called eyes and continue to do so. I grab a large-mouthed funnel, place it in a wide-mouthed jar, and dip a big batter bowl with handles in the tomatoes. I walk briskly to the table, careful not to slosh the red, hot liquid on myself and begin pouring, batter bowl to jars, wiping down each rim again, pressing down the lids, and twisting on the rings. Jar to jar, row by row, until all are filled, and the red, seedy mixture has disappeared from the canner.
Now the hard part begins.
*****
I’m fourteen again, standing in the overheated kitchen of our doublewide, listening as a chorus of lids begins popping, lids sealing on each jar, signaling they are good. The process has taken. The project is a success. And with each pop, my exhausted mother pipes up, “Thank you, Lord!” Late into the night, I press each jar’s lid, seeking out any that have not yet sealed. Sometimes, if you press down, the seal will pop into place. “Some take longer,” she tells me as I touch them repeatedly, impatiently, seeing if they bounce back, not yet sealed, willing them to seal, so I can turn the fans back on in the immense summer heat. The jars are still hot, all this time later, wrapped in all the dish towels we own to insulate the jars to increase their chances of sealing. Sometimes it takes hours.
“What if they don’t seal?” I ask, already dreading the answer.
“Then we dump those back in the canner and try again tomorrow.”
Not another day of this unbearable heat, I think! So I find myself praying they all seal.
Five jars remain unsealed as Mom begins nodding off in her recliner in the living room within sight of the jars. “Watch them for me,” she tells me drowsily. She is truly worn out from standing on her feet all day canning these 80-some quarts and three pints of tomatoes. “Remember to say it—don’t forget—‘Thank you, Lord,’ each time one seals.”
I leave the bar stool I’ve been sitting on to watch the 11:00 news as it goes off-air, watching impatiently, poking those lids, feeling the warmth still held in by those dish towels. Then, one by one, they pop. Pop! Pop! “Thank you, Lord! Thank you, Lord!” I don’t hesitate saying it. She has converted me. I want those jars to seal as badly as she does. If this is part of the process, then sobeit. “Thank you, Lord!” The last jar finally seals after midnight. I rouse my mother from her napping and tell her the task is complete; she can go to bed.
*****
Flash forward again to my own kitchen and dining room where I’m teaching my unchurched husband the importance and fine art of “Thank you, Lord,” which he insists is not really part of the canning process. I assure him he is wrong, and he must do it— because it is how I was taught and there is power in doing things as we’ve been taught to do them. We continue to fill the jars, wipe clean any splashes from the rims, place the lids with magnetic rims so we don’t burn our hands on the jars with the boiling liquid inside them, and twist tight the rings with dish cloths as quickly as possible, still feeling the heat through the cloths. Almost immediately, we hear a pop. “Thank you, Lord,” my husband complies when I look him sternly in the eye.
*****
Two years later, Mom has died. My two summers of canned tomatoes are long gone, and the twelve jars she last gave me still line my pantry shelves. I use them sparingly. But I use them. They’re all I have left of her, so I know I should save them. Instead of saving them, though, I savor them. Because they are all I have left. And in the end, when I come to the last jar, I debate whether or not to use it. Do I finish off the last remnant of Mom’s hard work, or do I keep it on a shelf forever?
I slowly take the jar down, place it on the table, remove the ring, and pry off the lid. When it pops the tell-tale pop, tears sting my eyes. I can’t help it. I say, “Thank you, Lord,” and start the last pot of chili she’ll take part in making.
Chrissie Anderson Peters lives in Bristol, TN, with her husband and feline children. She holds degrees from Emory & Henry College and the University of Tennessee. She has been published in Still: The Journal, Women of Appalachia Project, Red Branch Review, and Salvation South, among others. Read more about her work at www.CAPWrites.com.
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**Featured image credit: Henrique Claudio, Pixabay, cropped