Comfort Food

When my mother died, we were overwhelmed with visitors and food. Little old men my father had worked with years ago tottered up the front walk bearing casseroles and sat with with father for a while and talked about their "prostrates." And neighbors brought over cakes and molded gelatin. Fried chicken poured in by the bucketful. It was nice, both because of the love and the practicality. Father and Brother and I were simply too shell-shocked and to arrange for our own meals.

Now my father has died and no one brought us food. Husband and I don't live in a tight little neighborhood like my parents did. My best friends are thirty-five miles away in Austin, and it would be awkward to call them and say, "Hi, how are you? My dad just died. Bring food."

So Daughter-in-law and I troop out every day and pick up a few things we think everyone might eat, usually deli stuff, because nobody feels like cooking. Cooking is for happy occasions like Thanksgiving and Christmas, not for deaths and funerals. But cooking or not, our household has swollen in size and everyone needs to eat--Husband and I, Older Son and his wife, Younger Son, sometimes Daughter. But no fried chicken is forthcoming.

Welcome to modern living.