remembering

I’ve told this story to various people and just again recently. I don’t know why it comes up other than I find it amusing. My great-aunt used to make me tea with sugar every afternoon after school. She would boil the water and make a pot even though no one else was around to drink it but me. She would pile on scoops and scoops of sugar because I like it ultra-sugary. She would blow on it to cool it down and warn me that it was hot. Then she would sit and watch me drink it. She put her spices and things in clear jars, sometimes without labels, because she could tell what they were by sight. One time she took the wrong container and put salt in my cup of tea. I think I was ten. My nose and forehead wrinkled with confusion. Then I said, “You put salt in this tea!” She stared blankly at me for a second, and then grinned, and then started laughing. It was so absurdly wrong, and funny. She made me another cup. Maybe one day I will put salt in my kids’ tea, and maybe years later they will remember how sweet the act of caring is.