Today is Father's Day. It is our first one without Dad but it was never huge in our house growing up. Dad said that it was a Hallmark Holiday rather than a religious one so he did not want to celebrate it. I always called him on Father's Day to tell him, "Happy Hallmark Day, Dad!" He would laugh, understanding why I was doing it because when I was little, I used to be angry with him for not letting me celebrate. His second wife wanted us to celebrate it but by then, it was really not something that seemed sincere.
There are always a lot of conflicted feelings on this day because he wasn't what he could have been over the last 26 years. This year, I really wish I could tell him about how much my cooking skills have developed but alas, it is now too late. I thought that I had spent the last week saying what had to be said; I guess you never really finish wanting to share growth and good things with your parents...regardless of age or circumstance. It is just one part of the condition we call: human.
June 12, 2013
It is 1980 and Dad and I are cooking together after school.
The smells coming out of the kitchen are intoxicating and making my stomach growl; when will it be ready so that we can finally eat?
The picture changes...
It isn't really 1980; it is 2013 and I am about to turn 50 years old, Dad is very ill, and Mom has been gone almost 30 years. . The pangs in my stomach aren't really hunger-they are the beginnings of grief. I am about to become an adult orphan and it appears that it hurts no matter what the age or circumstances so I begin to write in an effort to hold on to the memories of my youth. In these moments, I can be safe, 17, and cooking with dad waiting for Mom to come home from work, once again; it is a less complicated time though I did not know it then.
This blog is journey of my struggle to find a connection to my father after he has passed away. It is a testament to his way of showing love - by cooking a fine meal for those he loved. Already my attempts to make sense of this grief process have had an evolution of their own as I struggled to make sense of my father's death, my father's choice to stay with a second wife who alienated him from his family (until the last week of his life), and finally to find positive personal growth in this journey not of my own choosing."Both of my parents are gone!" There, I have said it out loud and even with a loving immediate family, it doesn't change the fact that my world has changed and I cannot get it back to the way it was, ever!
What follows is a record of my journey in becoming an adult orphan. It is my hope that along the way, others will find a piece of themselves in my moments in time, snippets of past moments allowing us glimpses of ourselves as the main characters of our youth. This journey has led me back to a teeny tiny kitchen over 1100 miles away on West Salisbury Drive with smells that range from the perfect stuffing on Thanksgiving day to the chili that was so spicy, only Dad could eat it.
Now, as part of his campaign to get women back in the kitchen, Chef Gordon Ramsay is actually allowing me to cook my way through my grief process in a more positive way than eating every sour filled Twizzler within a 50 mile radius.
Instead he has allowed me to travel back into the world of my parents:
- Mom, who did not enjoy cooking or baking but baked cookies with us so that we would have the experience and memories that children should have with their moms.
- Dad, who loved to cook and expressed love through his efforts even if most of what he cooked was too spicy for me to truly appreciate.
A few years ago, he gave me his recipe binders, oddly kept unused but pristine and organized for 26 years. I am thankful that I have this piece of him as apparently, his will left not a single memento for my brother and myself.
I do not know what grief looks like but to me, it distinctly smells of Mom's stuffing and Dad's Sunday morning bacon ends sizzling in the pan.
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