Mushroom Picking

On the first Sunday of my married life, my husband took me to meet his beloved Uncle Roy and Aunt Dorothy and their large brood of children and their childrens children after morning church. Dressed in my Wedding Going Away Dress, a shirt waist dress with a full skirt and raw silk shoes, the best impression wanting to be made.

I wasn't at all prepared for the large group of people all related to each other and now to me dressed in their scruffiest of clothes. Aunt Dorthy enveloping me in her bosomy embrace greeted me, "Well you can't pick mushrooms in high heels!"

I was quickly swooped away by daughter-in-law #1, hanging on to her reassurance that something easily could be found for me to wear. It didn't seem to occur to her she was at least a foot shorter than I was. "Here, these pants are stretchy and this sweater is from when I was last pregnant. I've got shoes someone gave to me around here somewhere that will just do the trick."

It took all the courage I could muster to appear before the large crowd waiting to pick mushrooms in pants that didn't cover my calves, a sweater barely reaching my elbows, and red clodhopper shoes I can't imagine anyone ever having worn.

I will forever recall this day as the one I learned mushrooms didn't just come from the grocery store and could be as wrinkly and as unattractive as could be and that a family would wait an entire year for just the right moment to descend up the floor of the forest in search of this elusive fungus. It was also the first day of my life to be embraced by a family I now call my own and who love me with all their hearts.