Memories in the Kitchen

I had a memory so vivid and rich that I closed my eyes and I was there. I could smell browned beef and a myriad of other smells that told me a meal was about to be served. I heard heavy work boots on the vinyl floor as hungry men came in from the cold and shut the door to the garage behind them. The warmth of her kitchen and her welcoming embrace touched my heart once again. The chairs were shuffled about as I squeezed my way behind the small table in the kitchen and everyone found a place. She quickly put a parade of miss-matched Correl dishes mounded with food on the table, enough to feed an army, but still she asked, "Do you think there will be enough?" After a prayer of thankfulness was said, we dove into the delicious meal. The meat was tender and salty and there were mash potatoes and gravy too. She said something like, "I'm so glad you could come. I just thought a roast sounded good and I needed someone to share it with." She was always doing things like that.

The memory was gone as fast as is came and behind it I remembered other events in that kitchen. We spent so much time there as my husband would take a break from farm work to say "hello" and meet up in that place. A place that was always full of warmth and welcome. Where hot coffee was brewing in the winter with cookies or zwieback waiting on a Correl plate. In the summer she always had her instant ice tea ready, even though I never liked it because it wasn't "real" like my family made. Now I love that instant stuff. I got used to it and miss her pouring the non-sweetened powder into her green Tupperware pitcher with a splash of lemon juice from the fridge and a scoop of sugar from the drawer by the stove. It's those little things that were so distinctively "her" that I miss the most.

Again I remembered another memory from her kitchen, but this one not a good one. The time in March of 2006 when I brought Emma inside and set her on the floor to play; I asked how the dr. visit was and her youngest daughter, our aunt Joyce said, "You'd better tell them." Grandma always had a way of downplaying things and she said, "Oh, the doctors think I will die in 3 weeks." I watched her fidget with her cane, so full of life and love. I was stricken and terrified, but she was not. "Doctors, what do they know?" She said with a smile and a light laugh. She'd been a nurse for over 40 years. She knew exactly what the experts were talking about and she was aware of what came next. Instead of 3 weeks, we had 3 days. 3 hard, horrible days until she was gone. I miss her still. Every time I step into her kitchen and hope she will be there. I sit down there sometimes at that little table scrunched in the corner and remember how it was. It was so perfect. It seems sometimes that I don't realize how wonderful something is until it is gone. Today is just another day, but I hope I remember it as wonderful when it is over. I guess only I have control over that.

Emma and Grandma Peters, summer 2005