Keep it Real Wednesday
September 22, 2021
The Crust
When our children were young, our son was notorious for leaving the sandwich crust on his plate. Our daughter would eat the entire sandwich, crust and all and never complain but our son, well, he would refuse.
After many unsuccessful attempts at trying to get him to eat his crust, I finally gave up. I started carefully cutting the crust off his sandwich beforehand.
My son is now 24 and you will be grateful to know I am no longer cutting the crust off his sandwiches.
But Rosemary is a different story.
Rosemary raised us in an era where we had to clean our plates before we left the table. “Waste not, want not” and stories of starving children in other countries provided the guilt needed to ensure there was not waste on our plates EVER. I am not sure when the outlook shifted for Rosemary, but she has become such a picky eater and has developed a big distaste for bread crust. She has 2 slices of toast every morning and she says she leaves the crust for me to give the squirrels. When we have sandwiches for lunch, she will carefully eat around the crust and then leave them strategically hidden in a napkin so I can’t find them.
I have now resorted to cutting the crust off Rosemary’s sandwiches in advance before I serve them to her.
Perhaps it is just the pace of life as a caregiver slowing down for me, but I found a strange correlation between crust and life in general these days.
Really, what is bread crust? It’s the outer layer that hardens so the inside stays soft. It still carries nutrients but can be tough to swallow and to some, not enjoyable.
I guess it’s a lot like life right now. Our lives are full of “crust”. I want to cut the crust off too and just keep the good stuff in life, but we unfortunately we can’t.
This may be an overly annoyingly optimistic view, but I have to wonder how our souls will be nourished after we eat 2021’s crust? We may want to leave it on our plate and just move on, but I believe we DO have the power to make the best of what life throws at us, no matter what it is.
As for Rosemary, at 95 she has earned the right to leave all the crust on her plate.
