Sentimenty

Something about picking grapes in Grandpa and Grandma's vineyard today made me uncharacteristically emotionable.  What brought this about?  I am not a sentimental individual.  I'm practical.  Logical.  Perhaps it was the ghosts of earlier years that darted among the vines like hummingbirds.  I could hear my parents, aunts, and uncles calling to each other through the trellises; there were glimpses of my brothers and my cousins ducking among the hanging clusters, though there was no one there with me besides Pixie, Angel Doll, Lefty, and The Precious.
The raindrop that landed on my lip while I pulled clusters from their stems tasted sweeter than any other rains I could recall.  I felt strength soak into my tired arms and pain dissipate from my joints as the purple orbs fell into my fingers.  Is it coincidence that in order to reach some of the best clusters, one must kneel?
Did Grandpa imagine decades ago when he cultivated these plants, that they would nourish the bodies and souls of his grandchildren, and our children as well?  Did he know God would whisper to us there?
I remembered my aunties' stories of training the vines every year, beginning at one end of the vineyard and working day after day until they reached the other end.  The night they finished the entire vineyard, they would all go out to the movies to celebrate a job well done...and the next morning they would start all over at the beginning of the vineyard again.
I worked in the vineyard with my cousin the summer of my senior year, so recently, so long ago.  Oh, the plans we made up and the stories we shared.  Oh, the secrets the vineyard knows.  The grape fields of Italy and the wine farms of France have no glory like the vineyards of Grandpa and Grandma's.
Jeremy Renner would envy us.
Heaven smells like grapes.