1 . Every time I stare at the rows of jars filled with my parents’ homemade tomato sauce, I wonder: “Should I really use one?”

I have been keeping these jars like precious treasures. No matter how hard I try to find alternatives, nothing compares. Store bought sauce? It doesn’t taste right. Even if I try to recreate it, it will never taste the same.

While growing up, I hated the tomato season. My parents would use the basement to ripen the tomatoes they had collected locally in September. Like the other Italian families in the area, we would then take them to the garage when they were ripe enough. There they were cleaned and boiled.

Having been stewed (炖), whole tomatoes were passed through my father’s homemade machine to. Separate the sauce from the skins. Jars at the ready. We filled them with sauce and seasoning. The jars would be hot for a few days, sealed (密封) to keep their own heat. They would then be lined up and ready to use.

This tradition was hard to carry on when my father got ill. After being diagnosed (诊断) with cancer in 2019, he spent most of his time in hospital. In September that year he came home, and on the weekend we decided to continue the tradition. I have glorious memories of that day as we once again made the sauce. It was a beautiful but short-lived moment. My father died soon after.

I can’t keep these jars forever. But it doesn’t make it any easier to open one. Every time I go to reach for one, something stops me. My mother, ever practical, is visiting us recently and just stares at them.

“You should use these or they will go to waste.”

What will it feel like to use that last jar? It would mean the end of an era. Who knows? Maybe it’s time to bring new traditions into life.

My father often took me to his hospital when I was off my school. He showed me how his medical instruments was used. I felt so closely to him. However, after I went to high school, somehow I become distant from him. I was unwilling talk with him and often disobeyed his rule of not stay out with my friends too late. The disagreement was too sharp that neither he nor I knew what to settle it. One day, he talked with me or hoped to mend our relations. With the efforts made by all sides, we began to understand each other better.

8 . Grandparents Answer a Call

As a third generation native of Brownsville, Texas, Mildred Garza never pleased move away. Even when her daughter and son asked her to move to San Antonio to help their children, she politely refused. Only after a year of friendly discussion did Ms. Gaf finally say yes. That was four years ago. Today all three generations regard the move to a success, giving them a closer relationship than they would have had in separate cities.

No statistics show the number of grandparents like Garza who are moving closer to the children and grandchildren. Yet there is evidence suggesting that the trend is growing. Even President Obama’s mother-in-law, Marian Robinson, has agreed to leave Chicago and into the White House to help care for her granddaughters. According to a study grandparents com. 83 percent of the people said Mrs. Robinson ‘s decision will influence the grandparents in the American family. Two-thirds believe more families will follow the example of Obama’s family.

“In the 1960s we were all a little wild and couldn’t get away from home far enough fast enough to prove we could do it on our own,” says Christine Crosby, publisher of Grate magazine for grandparents. We now realize how important family is and how important to be near them, especially when you’re raining children.”

Moving is not for everyone. Almost every grandparent wants to be with his or her grandchildren and is willing to make sacrifices, but sometimes it is wiser to say no and visit frequently instead. Having your grandchildren far away is hard, especially knowing your adult child is struggling, but giving up the life you know may be harder.

Many years ago, my father, who was 80 at that time, arrived for his regular two-week visit at my home in Karachi. He lived with my elder brother in Lahore most of the time and for ten years had stuck to his habit of going for an hour-long morning walk to keep fit. In Lahore, he would walk around a park that is quite close to my brother’s house. Naturally, he was keen to continue his morning walk while with us in Karachi.

Our preferred park is a 2 km walk from my house and it has a l km walking track. I could not drive him there every day as I had to leave for the office at the same time he wanted to set out. Since there are hardly any footpaths in Karachi, my father said he was delighted to walk on the road as he was certain there wouldn’t be much traffic in the morning.

I was less confident so I suggested it would be safer if he changed his walk time to the evening. That way I could take him to the park after work. However, my father-a determined person-said that he could not change his routine for just a few days and insisted that he would be leaving the house every day at 7 am and returning by 8 am. He started doing this and stuck firmly to his schedule. So one day when he had not returned by 8:30 am, my wife, Qaisa, phoned me in a panic. Worried, I immediately drove home, taking the same route that my father would have taken for his walk.

Not spotting him anywhere, I went to the police station to report my father’s disappearance. The station house officer advised me to wait until midnight before filling the report. Since it was only 10 am, I drove back to the park, in the hope of discovering some trace, but in vain. Totally at a loss for what to do next, I returned home and waited impatiently, walking back and forth in the house.

At 10:35 am the doorbell rang and my father stood outside the door smiling, accompanied by a young man.

After knowing what had happened, I showed my appreciation of his kindness.

I walked to Mrs. Windsor’s house and waited outside. She was working with another student, and I was not supposed to bother them by ringing the bell. I stood against the wall and daydreamed what I’d rather be doing. I had been tutored enough to read, understand, and even write some musical compositions, but I just didn’t have a gift for it. Mrs. Windsor had offered to give me the lessons for free, so I felt it my duty to try.

The door opened and Wendy Barton came out. I walked in, sat down on the piano bench and began to sort through my sheet music. Today Mrs. Windsor introduced her niece Pasha to teach me.

With a smile, Pasha sat beside me on the piano bench, opened my sheet music to the beginning page and asked me to play. I arranged my fingers on the keys. Then I frowned (皱眉) and concentrated to make the notes on the page match the finger movements. I had to admit I was a rather mechanical (不加思考的) pianist.

After about a page or two, Pasha gently put her hand on top of mine as if to calm my fingers. There was a long pause. “What are you hearing in the music?” I looked at her rather strangely and admitted I didn’t know what she meant. “Like a story. Here, let me try and you listen,” Pasha advised.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, letting her fingers dance lightly over the keys. Then, she began to play. “See, it begins here beside some kind of river. Hear the water flowing beside you?” Her fingers rose and fell gently on the keys. “Now a princess appears and she’s picking flowers from the water’s edge.” A happy piece of music filled the air in time to Pasha’s dancing fingers.