Grief: A food memory

My husband died fifteen years ago and this is a happy-sad memory about food.

One morning, I sleepily walked into the kitchen to make coffee and breakfast. I had left a pan of dinner on the stove for my daughter, the night before. She would be returning from work after the rest of us were in bed. As I picked up the pan to wash it with a few other dishes, I noticed one ravioli and one carrot left in the bottom of the pan.

Standing in the kitchen, holding the pan in the air and staring at the ravioli, I had a heart-warming wave of remembrance. A slow smile parted my lips and I wondered if this was in her DNA. She was only 12 years old when her father died. I don’t think she could have remembered this habit of his. It couldn’t have been environmental. It had to be encoded in the cells of her body.

My husband had been a great “leftover” eater. He was self-employed with a used car lot and auto mechanic shop less than one mile from our home. He worked odd hours, going to work early in the morning to open the shop, or late at night to complete a car sale or repair a car for the owner who would arrive early the next day. Hurley would pop home in the afternoon for a bite to eat, standing in front of the refrigerator asking me to show him which containers of leftovers needed to be eaten before they spoiled. I would guide him to the plastic containers of different…