lychee season

She brought them in a paper bag, nestled in a kitchen towel—bright lychees, pink and freckled, still holding the warmth of her car. I could smell them before I saw them. That sweet, almost floral scent that pulls something up from memory before you know what it is.

My mother always brings things. Fruits mostly. Sometimes herbs from her garden or a small container of rice and peas, cooked the way only she can. It’s never for a holiday, never for a reason other than this: she was thinking of me. She wanted me to taste something good.

Lychee reminds me of summer in Johannesburg. The heat shimmering off sidewalks, the sound of the street vendors, the way the fruit felt cold in your hands even in all that sun. I remember eating them too quickly and letting the sticky juice run down my wrist. There’s something both tender and precise about peeling the skin back just enough to expose the translucent fruit inside. A small act—but it carries the weight of care, of memory, of place.

I ate one slowly in the kitchen. Standing at the counter, looking out at the garden, letting the taste fill my mouth. I thought about how many ways love shows up when you grow older. Not as grand gestures or long phone calls, but as something brought in a bag, on a warm day, just because.

Food has always been a language in our family. A quiet kind. We don’t always say the things we mean, but we will drive across boroughs with fruit in hand. We will ask, “Did you eat?” when what we really mean is “How are you holding up?”

That day, with the lychees, I felt held. Rooted. Grateful. Not just for the fruit, but for what it carried with it.