Mary's apple pie

For whatever reason, last night as I was driving home from Target where I purchased my umpteenth black ink cartridge for the semester, I started thinking about Mary. Mary is a lady I met many years ago when I was a young college kid and she was a very kind lady who would open her house to us on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday evenings so we could all hang out and eat...boy did we eat. She was a spunky kind of lady who never acted like a "senior" which made her able to identify with the naive 20 something-year-olds who came her way. Her favorite color was blue and she had this bright blue sweater that used to make her eyes radiant. Mary was lovely.
I never met William, but I'd heard about him. William was Mary's husband and he had passed away before mine and Mary's paths crossed. I heard about how handsome he was and what a gentleman he was and oh his voice, he had this beautiful voice. I could tell that Mary was still madly in love with her beloved William and she missed him dearly.
One weekend evening, all the college gang was gathered at Mary's and of course I was in the kitchen chatting with her watching her cook. That evening she decided to serve us all pie for dessert. There were a few different kinds I think they was blueberry, cherry, and apple. The apple pie was the last one to come out of the oven. I told her it smelled delicious. While we were waiting for the pie to finish I made mention of the fact that I had never made a pie before and wouldn't know where to begin. She began to tell me about when her and William got married, she learned that he loved apple pie. So of course being the wife who wanted to appease her husband's stomach where every man's heart is, she would bake him his favorite pie. She said she made so many pies for him that he started to get a little tired of eating the pie that used to be his weakness. She chuckled and said she held off for a while before baking him another one and then only baked them for special occasions.
She went on to say that after William died it was a long time before she made apple pie again. She said her first pie had so many tears in it, it was probably more tears than apples.
And there we were standing in her kitchen with pies cooling on the counter while the sacred apple pie was coming out of the oven.
I learned in class the other day that the most stressful life event experienced by adults is the death of a spouse. I believe it. After the death of a spouse, even pies bring you grief. But the point is, Mary went on. She didn't stay in her grief and have it carry her through, she carried it. I don't think anyone ever grieves and then leaves their grief behind and never grieves for that person again, we love these people. Sometimes it's okay to bring your grief out of hiding for a moment so you don't forget as a lot of people fear they will.
I learned a lot from Mary's pie. I learned that the grave cannot stop true love. I learned that you have to go on. And I learned that pie is a lot sweeter when there's love (or tears) in it.