Empty Kitchen
Sometimes, in the morning, when I walk around the yard or stand on the porch, everything feels as it was, especially on a Sunday. That was always the morning of the big breakfast, eggs and grits, maybe fresh biscuits, waffles with bacon, prepared by my wife who prepared all of our food, but especially liked Sunday breakfast. And it was always a little bit later than usual, because there was no work for me to rush to, and we had time, especially when the kids grew up and left us once again to our own devices. There would be coffee, of course, and I would take it outside to walk around and feel the cool air if that were the season and admire our yards because we both liked the yards and gardens. And then I would come in, usually without needing to be called and we would eat and talk and get ready for the day.
I had that feeling yesterday in the bright sun of an early morning as I stood on the porch with my coffee. Except it was a fleeting moment, one that snuck up on me, a pang, a twinge, a short quickening of the heart. My wife is dead. There’s no one in the kitchen. And breakfast now is a perfunctory affair, haphazard at best and it’s been a long while since I did grits and egg even though I really like them, it’s just that they are so much her dish they seem almost tasteless without her at the stove preparing them, although I suppose I could make it a special occasion breakfast, a sort of toast to the departed. Something to consider.
There’s a lot of that going on these days. Things to consider. Too many in fact, sometimes. But that’s another story all together. This one is simply about a slight slippage of space and time where everything felt as it once did even though it does no longer. Capturing it, I suppose, and memorializing it so I always remember the feeling and always remember her because that’s who I was and who we were and her being gone shouldn’t make it disappear nor should I want it to. But only God knows what I’m going to eat for breakfast today.
John W. Wilson is the author of The Long Goodbye: A Caregiver’s Tale