I'll Never Look at Strawberries the Same Again.
“We should probably eat those strawberries that I bought a few days ago,” my husband told me as he opened the refrigerator. “Don’t want ‘em to go bad.”
I was in the kitchen doing the last-minute prep for dinner. I grabbed one of the wrapped plastic containers and started to tear off the clear packaging. “Freson Palos” it read, stamped in white on all sides of the plastic wrapping. I quickly flipped over the container and read the words of the address, “Palos de la Frontera, Espana.” That’s where Habiba lived and worked in the strawberry fields. That’s where the women still live and work today, the very ones who picked and packaged the fruit I now held in my hands.
I love strawberries—that beautiful, bright-red, heart-shaped fruit with a leafy green hat on its head. Strawberries, one of the few fruits I’m not allergic to. I love strawberries. I love their sweet taste, their juicy center. I love everything about strawberries.
I used to love everything about strawberries. Not anymore.
I used to not react to strawberries. Not anymore.
I’ll never look at strawberries the same way again.
Never.
Since I met Habiba, strawberries mean something different to me. Although beautiful, they now represent something ugly and nasty. Although sweet, they now represent something bitter and dark. Although fresh, they now represent something rotten and dead.
Since I met Habiba, I’ll never look at strawberries the same way again. Now, when I see a strawberry, I react. Something deep inside the pit of my stomach tightens. A mixed emotion of sadness and anger violently floods my soul. Grief overwhelms my heart. Disbelief plagues my mind.
How can a small, simple red strawberry affect me this way?
I turned over the plastic container and dumped the fresh strawberries into the white colander. The cold water from the faucet ran over them, washing them clean from dirt and debris.
“If only it were that easy to be washed clean,” I thought to myself.
As I delicately picked up each strawberry in my hand, I examined its size, shape, texture, and color.
“I wonder which woman’s hands picked this strawberry,” I asked myself as I gently turned the fragile fruit in my hand.
Some strawberries were dark red and mushy. They were aged and bruised. I tossed them in the nearby garbage can.
“I wonder which woman’s hands picked that strawberry—the one I just threw out. Which woman? Which field? Which owner?” I thought.
“Was it all worth it . . . to pick a strawberry that would one day be tossed, thrown out in the trash? Was it all worth it? All that you have gone through and suffered . . . to pick that strawberry for me?” I wondered.
Aching filled my heart, and I felt nauseous.
I’ll never look at strawberries the same way again.
“Mommy, can you cut them up and add some sugar?” my seven-year-old son asked me innocently.
He didn’t know what I knew about strawberries. He didn’t know what I knew about the strawberry fields. He didn’t know what I knew about the women who pick strawberries in the fields of Spain. He didn’t know what I knew. I didn’t want him to know. No, I didn’t want him to know.
I cut up the strawberries in quarters, and my son happily sprinkled the cut-up pieces with a tablespoon of sugar. He stirred them. With his tiny hands, he picked up the sweet, red, juicy fruit and ate it.
“Yummy! Yummy in the tummy!” he said with a smile from ear to ear.
They tasted so sweet and good to him.
He didn’t know what that woman went through to pick that strawberry for him. He didn’t know what happened to that woman who picked that strawberry in the field, with her back hunched over in pain. He didn’t know that woman’s name. He didn’t know what she looked like. He didn’t know about her pain and her suffering.
He didn’t know. I didn’t want him to know.
But I knew. I knew her name. I knew her pain.
I’ll never look at strawberries the same again.