Blueberry Pie

I had never eaten while sitting on the floor before. I knew sitting surrounded by boxes that something big was about to happen. My family sat on the floor in the same dinning room but now there was no table and there was a strange darkness hanging over the room. It might be that my father had just told me that my dog, Peanut, had run away, and we would not be able to find him before we left in the morning. I guess my parents wanted to cheer me up after giving me such news, so they told us as we gathered around each other on the floor that we were only having pie for dinner.
It was blueberry pie. The best blueberry pie I have ever tasted in my life. I was only a few months past four years old but there is still a memory of that deep, dark, sweet, and gooey berry taste all these years later. I think by the point my parents gave me a second piece my fear of the unknown place where we were about to move, and loss of my best friend, the tan cocker spaniel that had shared so many of my early childhood memories, had begun to wain. It was so odd even at this young age to see things change so quickly.
New Jersey was the only place I had known. My earliest memories are of this house. I can even recall taking naps in my crib as a young boy and remembering my mom putting the blue blanket over the crib when it was really bright out and being surrounded in such a different color. Playing with my sisters in the basement, it was so open I could ride my tricycle from one side to the other and terrorize them playing with their barbie dolls. Now things would be different. Sitting on the floor where the dinning room table had always been looking up at my father the only one in a chair and eating pie for dinner. Even at four years old, I knew that things would never be the same. Somehow the pie was a comfort.
I do not particularly care for blueberries now. Only one time have I tasted a piece of blueberry pie that even reminded me of that sour/sweet taste from so many years ago. Never in the course of my childhood did my family ever skip a proper dinner as we did that night. And as a family we moved eleven more times in the next thirteen years. Home is a different word for me than it is for most other people. "Home is where I hang my hat" is a phrase I have learned to embrace in my own life. I think even as an adult there is a part of me that is still sitting on that floor looking up at my father, mother, and two sisters in a dark, table-less dinning room, that longs for a safe place to lay my head, with bright colors in the day and a beautiful tan cocker spaniel that longs to lick my grungy four year old face, and another piece of blueberry pie.