Bittersweet

My youngest daughter, almost 22 months, has taken a liking to grapefruit. She calls it an orange, but it is most certainly a grapefruit. I know this because the preparation time needed in order to serve a grapefruit properly is more time intensive than for that of an orange.

Proper grapefruit preparation includes cutting the grapefruit in half and then painstakingly cutting along the edges of the natural triangles of the grapefruit slices. I do this so that the bitter skin can be easily pushed aside when I spoon out the pink fruit and place it on a little plate for my daughter.

I won't always be able to do this for her. Life, on most days, is a combination of the bitter and the sweet. I know there is purpose in this. I know it is just how life is. One does not always have the tools needed to cut away the bitter from the sweet. And we need the bitter even, to understand the sweet.

Grownup as I am, there is no one but myself to cut my grapefruit. But I have found that sometimes there are days where the bitter skin of life has been pushed away and what is left is simply the sweet fruit.