Red Jello

Rows of crystal goblets
at perfect attention,
each cradling translucent ruby
and snow cream stripes,

each covered with saran wrap
and secured with a newsprint-blackened rubber band,
waiting for me on the shelf
in my Grandma's fridge.

Okay, given the choice between high-class language and everyday talk, I need to be true to my background and go for the everyday talk.

A young child's memory of love: Red Jello with Cool Whip. Appropriate colors for Valentine's Day, but just by chance. Or was it . . . ?

My perky grandmother (perky in spirit; she sat down most of the time) would make these magical desserts en masse before my visit. Occasionally she'd be finishing them up as I arrived, deftly stretching the cling wrap across the top. I marvelled at how she could put it on so perfectly that if I held it at an angle, it disappeared. Most times they'd already be in the fridge lined up from back to front, second shelf down usually, at least two columns of them.

They weren't all for me, of course. But as I was the only little one around then, they were mostly for me. She would have one, too; we'd sit down at the big kitchen table and pull off the rubber bands, which we'd later put back in the drawer. (One of the Wonders of that house was the rubber band drawer: I could never fathom how they had collected that many green and red and blue skinny rubber bands.) Then we'd dig in with our spoons, down through the creamy white and into the cool red. The dessert dishes were shaped like goblets, with a stem and everything, and they weren't really crystal. They were better. Thick glass or something like that. Like at an old-fashioned ice-cream shop.

My grandmother knew how to make me feel special. How to make a simple thing magical.

Red jello with Cool Whip . . . nothing to do with my sweetheart. But everything to do with someone who loved me.