Granny Smith

I did not know my mother loved sweet things until I was well into adulthood. You would think that growing up in the same house would teach you everything about a person. It does not. Children are too busy growing up to notice the people around them properly.

It took a fridge to tell me.

I cannot remember exactly when it was. Sometime after I got married, after the children arrived, during one of those visits home. I opened the fridge looking for something and found a quiet stack of sweets tucked away inside. My mother’s private reserve. Someone pointed it out to me. I might not have even seen it on my own.

That was the moment I realised. She had always loved sweetness. I had simply never been paying attention.

Then came the diabetes diagnosis. Late in life, as these things sometimes arrive. And with it, the conversations about what she can eat and what she cannot. About managing levels and making adjustments to a lifetime of preferences.

I called her recently. Long distance, the way most of our conversations happen now. I had done my research. I knew what I wanted to say.

I started with the easy ones. The vegetables she could eat freely. The fruits that would not spike her levels. I explained which ones were safe, which ones to avoid, how to think about portions. She listened. Or at least she did not interrupt, which with my mother amounts to the same thing.

I was feeling confident. I had saved the best for last.

Granny Smith apples, I told her. Low sugar. Good for blood sugar control. A smart choice.

She did not pause. She did not consider. She did not ask what a Granny Smith was or where to find one. Before I had finished the sentence she said:
“It is very sour.”

That was it. The research. The careful list. The gentle persuasion. All of it met with four words delivered without a moment’s hesitation.

It is very sour.

I smiled. In that one quick sentence was everything. A whole life that had chosen sweetness at every turn, now being asked to make peace with sour. And her answer was not angry or resigned. It was just honest. The way only mothers can be.

I did not push the Granny Smith apple any further that day.