Grandmother, parts 2332 - 2335

  2332. Her eye was running up and down the stalks of the Brussel Sprout plants, and she was happy to remind herself that, long after those last red tomatoes were gone, the sprouts would be still there, impervious to any frost. Then there were the cabbages. She identified most with those cabbages, which were the same shape as she was, and just as tough, and reliable. 

2333. She was thinking about the enormous difference between cabbage and lettuce. Lettuce is so delicate and unpredictable. Perfect and succulent one day, and gone to seed the next. What ever kind of lettuce it is, if gives pleasure to everyone if only it is picked at the right moment, on the right day.

 2334. And cabbage is so similar looking, at least compared to a head of iceberg, the iceberg that everybody disregards. But iceberg lettuce can be long forgotten, snow can lay thick on the ground, and it can be below zero, yet cabbage in its sturdy overcoat is still there, willing and able to get a person through terrible times.

2335. Cabbage and turnips have so often been man’s salvation in times of tribulation, she was thinking, and yet nobody cares for them, and sometimes people will not bother to even harvest them. Grandmother considered herself to be just such another cabbage.