A Life Well-Lived//October 165th, 2022

 2020 was, most definitely, a strange year. There are many things that happened over the course of the year that I would consider “notable”, in many different ways. 

But one of the most interesting things that happened in 2020, was meeting a very special pumpkin on September 29th.

As you may or may not know, I work in a grocery store. And, every year, we get a decent amount of pumpkins in, though every year, the variety diminishes a bit. When I first started working, we often had pumpkin wonderlands in the months of September and October. Maybe not as much as the local farms got, but we had many pumpkins of many sizes and colors, some painted, some with hats or fuzzy hair, one year even a giant one that was priced over $300. As the years have gone on, though, the pumpkin selection at work has gotten very basic. Just your typical orange pumpkins, in small, medium, or large. (And, annoyingly, not to be seen again after Halloween. In the old days, we’d have a handful available through Thanksgiving, mostly for the fresh-pie crowd.) 

On the morning of September 29th, 2020, though, a very strange, almost magical thing happened:

Mixed in with the bin of orange pumpkins, was one lone white one.

(This is an actual picture, taken immediately after the load was brought in.)

Of course, I knew I had to have it. Something like this doesn’t just happen. There was clearly something special about this pumpkin, but only time would tell just how special it was.

My first observation about this white pumpkin was that it was heavier than most pumpkins. Most orange pumpkins, even before carving, generally have a hollow-ish feeling to them. But this guy was built solid. At times, moving it for pictures and the like felt like a challenge. I never had the intention of carving it, but I got the impression that it would be nigh on impossible, except maybe with some sort of real butcher’s knife. So unusual, it was definitely my prize pumpkin of the 2020 season.

This was the first official photo I took of it, that evening, along with this caption:

Needless to say, I was thinking if it as some sort of weird little Halloween miracle.

The pumpkin appeared in my “31 Shots Of Halloween” that year.

And of course, for many occasions after that.

I don’t remember exactly when the other pumpkins I bought in 2020 all officially rotted away (though a scroll through Instagram would probably give some insight into the timeline, based on when they stopped appearing in pictures), but this white guy became the record holder for the year…and then some.

As time went on, the pumpkin gradually started to yellow.

There was a part of me that wondered if it was somehow “ripening” into a “normal” pumpkin, but throughout it all, the once-white pumpkin maintained its mass, weight, and thickness, and never showed any signs of rot, softness, or leaking.

I figured the summer of 2021 would eventually bring it to its end. Pumpkins like cooler weather, and any pumpkin I’ve ever had last past Halfoween in May, has always eventually given up once the permanent hot temperatures hit. Once summer set in, I began checking on my pumpkin even more frequently. 

But…

September 29th, 2021 arrived, and this pumpkin, white, yellow, or however you wish to perceive it, celebrated its first birthday. I was astonished. I had never seen a pumpkin last so long, and seem so healthy on top of it, before.

I thought for sure once it hit the year mark that it was on its way out, but time kept passing. Halloween 2021 came and went, with the pumpkin still surviving. The first pumpkin I was ever aware of to be able to see two Halloweens! How exciting is that?! 

Thanksgiving passed, and I managed to use the pumpkin as a prop with one of my post-Thanksgiving sale purchases:

Christmas came and went, and before I knew it, all of my 2021 pumpkins were rotting away! Yet that white one remained, stronger than ever. I started to wonder if the story that a friend had told me during October, about pumpkins being kept after Christmas turning into vampires, might actually be true!

It wasn’t until two nights ago, March 12th, that I finally discovered mold forming on the bottom of my legendary pumpkin. Another couple of weeks and it would have been exactly a year and a half old. 

It has me feeling oddly emotional. I suppose I didn’t think the pumpkin would really last forever, but there was a part of me that couldn’t help but wonder, What if it could? Perhaps it would just petrify somehow from the inside; or maybe it already had. What could be the explanation for a pumpkin lasting, indoors, for over a year? 

I suppose it was just a little extra love, and some Halloween magic.

This is how it looked yesterday, unfiltered. The closest to orange it ever came.

Oddly enough, the second I finally brought it outside and set it down, it was as if all the strength left it, and it finally cracked.

As I type this, some of its seeds are being spread in the backyard. I’m not sure if anything will sprout from them after a year and a half of who knows what happening inside this pumpkin, but it doesn’t hurt to try. I would love to know its children.

If anyone can help me clarify what kind of pumpkin this may have been, please leave me a comment here, on Instagram, wherever you can get ahold of me. I did see some very similar looking ones in a bin at the pumpkin stand in Sleepy Hollow last year, but I can’t for the life of me remember what they were called now. 

I am sad to this pumpkin go, maybe sadder than I’ve ever been to see a pumpkin rot, but I am so, so grateful to have let this magical being into my life.

Stay spooky, my friends.