Comfort food

Tomorrow morning I drive to the west side to help my youngest daughter pack her household. After several years of weighing her options, she’s decided to move her residence to California’s Bay area near her sister.

I understand, have seen it coming for years. My youngest longs for her older sister’s companionship. And she needs a fresh start after a decade devoted to Detroit’s corporate world.

So, she’s renting her house to a nearby resident who answered her newspaper ad. The renter’s pipes had burst, and she needs temporary housing.

Perfect timing for both.

Meanwhile, to secure some fleeting time with my baby daughter, I offered to help her clean her house and pack her belongings.

Unlike me, my thirdborn is a minimalist. She also keeps a clean and organized home, so I’m not walking into a mess tomorrow.

Furthermore, I’ll have one more opportunity to take Lily, her black lab, for a walk.

Gosh, I’m going to miss my grand-dog. Watching her chase after my golfcart was such fun.

Here I go speaking in terms of past-tense again. Reality can be brutal when you look it in the eye.

I see myself smack dab in the middle of what the Greek poet Hesiod called the fourth of five ages of man.

And after my firstborn’s death in 1996, my middle daughter’s “individuation” to California after her graduation from Alma College in 1997, and my husband’s death two years ago, I’m determined to make the most of what remains of my life.

I call upon God’s mercy and grace to let go once more, putting my trust in His faithfulness.

Therefore, I opened the kitchen cupboard where I keep my stock pots and spent the afternoon making my mother’s hamburger soup, chunky with vegetables.

If there’s a woman who knew how to let her five daughters go, it was Sadie Lee O’Brien. In turn, she also knew how to swing open her door to us, our husbands and offspring.

Always, we found her table spread with a homecooked meal. Always, her delicious pies.

Thus, while the soup simmered today, I peeled honey crisp apples and blended butter, oatmeal, flour, pecans, and spices for a large pan of apple crisp.

Dear Reader, lest you think I’m behaving rather bravely, please know I spent the bulk of my day cooking my favorite comfort food first for yours truly.

And be sure, I enjoyed a bowl of warm apple crisp with Yule Love It Lavender Honey ice cream.

Yet, I’ll take some apple crisp and a few quarts of my mother’s hamburger soup to my daughter tomorrow.

Someday, when she finds herself in Hesiod’s fourth age of man, perhaps she’ll make her Nana’s hamburger soup, sit at her table, and find some comfort.

Contact Iris at irisfarmletters@gmail.com