Photo: Amitai Asif
“What are you grateful for, Mama?” the girl asked, head bent over her slate.
“I’m grateful for fire,” the mother said.
“For fire?” the child paused, somewhat dismayed. Perhaps she thought she’d rise up to the top of gratitude instead. Perhaps because her foot, where an amber had landed and left a painful blister, was not particularly appreciative of flames. Perhaps because fire-related chores of breaking kindling and cleaning out the ashes needed doing before she could go out to play.
“Yes,” the woman smiled, one hand stirring the oats even as a foot rocked the cradle which held the girl’s new brother. “Because without fire there will be no breakfast, no tea, no warm bath. Without it there would be no hearth, no place to get out from the damp, nowhere to warm your hands. Without it there would be no pots, no pans, no knife, no shovel, no kettle, no cake, no bread.”
Speaking of the last, the woman rose to rake the coals and make room for the dutch oven before shoveling a heaping mound of glowing red atop the lid, so the sourdough loaf could bake. She could feel the girl’s eyes on her, reassessing what she’d been privileged to always take for granted. What the mother knew could not.
“It is the common that we often forget to be grateful for,” the mother added, her lilting voice directed at the infant, who’d began to fuss, as her words matched the pace of her resumed cradle rocking: “Air to breathe, water to drink, flour for bread, cloth and fleece, a garden and field, to grow our food in.
“And,” she tugged fondly on a ringlet by her daughter’s chin, “having the common things all tended to, gives us the comfort in which to appreciate the more obvious gifts we cherish … like you, and little David, and your Pa.”
“And Gwendoline,” the girl reminded, eyes flicking to the swaddled corn-doll that she liked to tend.
“And Gwendoline,” the mother grinned. She peeked at the letters on the child’s slate. “And children who do their chores, as you will need to as soon as your S and W here receive a bit of mend.”
For the Tuesday Photo Challenge: Common
Na'ama Yehuda 
Splendid! It is the common things we tend to forget. Thank-you.
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Thank you, Teressa! 🙂 It is good to be reminded, isn’t it? In some ways there’s a blessing in being able to take some things for granted, because it means we have plenty enough to be able to do so … but there is also beauty it being reminded, once in while, of the immense privilege of things that many others – past and present – could not take for granted. 🙂
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Well said.
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🙂 Thank you! 🙂
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You are such an evocative and fine story teller. Brava! 💚✨💚
Adele Ryan McDowell, Ph.D.
AdeleRyanMcDowell.com Adeleandthepenguin.com MakingPeacewithSuicide.com Channeledgrace.com
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Oh, thank you, Adele! 🙂 I’m so very pleased you liked this (and any other post you like!) 🙂
XOXO
Na’ama
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That was good to read. As Australia burns with wildfires it is sometimes hard to remember fire has it good side too. 🙂
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I actually had that in mind, though didn’t want to refer to it … For all good things can be problematic if too much or to little: We need air, but too much wind is destructive. We need water, but too much brings flood and demise. We need company but too many is stifling. We need food but too much of it is unhealthy and wasteful. We need possessions but too many can be distracting and cause its own kinds of strife … So, like everything else, fire is not good or bad, but its reality is something to be grateful for, even if if does not mean that it needn’t have boundaries or caution around it (as the blister on the child’s foot may attest …)
🙂
May there be the good in all.
Na’ama
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I agree with all of that – I have a blister on my hand right now where I accidentally burnt myself on the electrical coil in the oven. It’s one of those fan forced ovens where the heating coil is on the top of oven. It makes it hard to get stuff out sometimes. The bread I was making turned out just great though. 🙂
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Yay to homemade bread! A personal favorite! 🙂 less yay to blisters and burns but such is life sometime… I hope it heals we!l and quickly and that you thoroughly enjoy that ouch earned bread! 🙂
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Yes, its not serious and the bread was much appreciated at aa group linnch. 😊thanks.
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🙂 yum! 🙂
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Great story ❤️
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Thank you TCast! 🙂
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While the hearth-fire warms our bodies, particularly our toes, your story warms our hearts. The truth, unembellished, yet wrapped around with care and with love. 🙂
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Thank you, Crispina! 🙂 Truth with a bit of warmth is often a good thing 🙂
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We like warmth
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We, too … ‘specially with temps WAY below freezing ‘scheduled’ for tonight and tomorrow …
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We’re still bobbing around the freezing point. It’s when we get an accompanying wind that it gets really cold. I used to like it. I put it down to getting old(er) 🙂
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I must not be getting older because I never really liked it … 😉
Or, hmm, I was BORN old … 😉
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I guess some people and some don’t. I used to so suffer in the hot summers, that winter came as a blessing. Yea, hot summers… we don’t get them anymore.
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🙂 True. We are all different. I always liked summer best, even if the heat can sometimes be oppressive, I prefer it to winter. I like the ease of minimal layers of clothing, the warmth of the sun on my (sunblock covered) skin, the delicious smell of summer. 🙂 Winter is a necessary evil, but not my favorite by far …
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Summer brought migraines. Thankfully very much reduced now. And maybe it’s because I now live on the coast, but summers are not as hot as they were in, say, the 70s.
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I think at least here summers FEEL less warm because so many places are air conditioned, so there’s at least some respite and a place to cool down. That said, I tend to get more migraines with change in barometric pressure and cold wind, than I do in summer, and with the heat. So just comes to show how different we all are. My body doesn’t necessarily does well in extreme heat (other medical issues), but I still prefer it to the winter, which has other challenges. I pick my poison, as it were … 😉
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Maybe it’s that I ache more in winter these days cos I’m tensing against the cold. And generally UK housing lacks air conditioning.
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Yeah, I know about the lack of AC in the UK. I grew up without an AC and we would be quite warm in summer … some nights were sticky and too humid … but for the most part there was a bit of breeze in the evenings coming from the water and with all the windows open it would be decently comfortable. Or at least that is how I remember it … 😉 And, yeah, I ache more in winter, too … All them barometric changes make me a ‘forecaster’ of all storms, rain, wind, dips in temps, and so on … 😉
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Oh, I’m a great forecaster. Much more accurate than the Met Office. )
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