Life's Nectar is to be Drunk

In the very early 1980's, I had an opportunity to interview both my older brother and my mother about their lives and memories of family life.

During the course of the interview my brother, Bruce, told me this short tale of a lesson he learned early in life.

Bruce's Ambrosia Story

The ambrosia [story] had to do with the honeysuckle that was in the back yard, to the left as you went out. You had to go up steps [to get from the back door to the yard].

I had heard of ambrosia so I decided I was going to collect ambrosia and drink it as the gods had done. I didn't discern between nectar and ambrosia - I figured it was about the same thing so nectar would be [just the same as ambrosia].

I took one of those red liquor glasses that I think are still around. The heavy ones. And I gathered, I don't know, I probably stripped the honeysuckle bush. (And this is when maybe I was about nine or ten.) And I squeezed that little third of a drop out of all (the damndest thing I went through all) these flowers. And of course it probably evaporated as fast as I put it in.
After a whole afternoon of I work I had something like a third of an inch or not even a quarter of an inch of liquid at the bottom. I said, "Oh my God, I can't just drink this now. It would be too abrupt, you know, I've got to save this somehow, I've got to preserve this somehow." So I put it in the freezer and I was going to come back later when I was real ready and primed for this and drink ambrosia.

Well I came back to the freezer later, opened it up, and it had evaporated entirely (apparently from freezing). So at a very early age I learned that you can not preserve ambrosia. You've got to drink it right there!

And you can't freeze it!

It was a very valuable lesson!

My brother lost a long battle with kidney cancer in 1997 but even in my last conversations with him I know that he never lost site of that valuable insight he gained so early in life.