27. Not Soup Yet

I make grey soup.  It tastes great but it’s the color of concrete.  I tried for years to figure out why I made such ugly soup and finally gave up.  I just threw in a can of tomatoes and called it Minestrone.  Then my daughter informed me that I added the starch too soon.  You have to precook the potatoes or the noodles and add them last.  That’s how you get soup that doesn’t look like a it came out of a cement mixer.  To be honest, my daughter cheats.  She adds a can of store bought chicken broth. 

Then there’s the problem of the salty soup. Lots of young cooks stand over the pot and keep adding salt, and tasting and adding and tasting.  Finally they’ve got a pot of salt water with some vegetables.  Then there’s the spice problem.  The young cooks all make the same mistake.  If some is good then more is better. They haven’t learned yet that there is such a thing as just enough.  Or the right time or even the right place.  So much of soup and life is all about knowing when.  When to start and when to stop. 

When I was small a can of chicken noodle soup was my idea of the perfect food.  My big brother, who later became quite an accomplished cook, was terrific with a can of soup.  I lost him recently and it was harder that I thought.  You see, I was diagnosed with a terminal disease a decade ago.  I am prepared.  I have the will; I’ve said my goodbyes and my bags are packed.  It wasn’t his turn yet.  I think he took cuts.   Now I will never hear him say,  “Gee, you know I don’t think I never gave her enough credit.  I should have treated her better.”  How will he ever feel regret at losing me if he goes first.  It’s just not fair.  I think he cheated.  I think he used caned chicken broth.

For the last few months I have been fighting with him.  Since he isn’t here I fight with anyone who is.  I’m angry mostly for what’s been lost.  The chance that our fractured family will ever be whole is now gone.  He took that dream with him.  We will never all sit around the table like we did that one time, and there was only one time, in Phoenix.  When Eddie made Mexican food so hot that tears ran down our cheeks as we ate. But it was so delicious that we couldn’t stop eating.  And we talked and laughed and played music.  For that short little window, we had just a taste of something wonderful and then it was gone.  And now he’s gone too. 

But beating up on everyone who loves me won’t bring him back.  It won’t even make the loss any easier to bear.  It doesn’t dull the pain.  So I am let here alone, having overstayed my welcome and not sure why. 

There is a new ghost in my house – a kind of iridescent shimmer that I see from the corner of my eye. When I’m sick there are lots of them.  They all stand around like cooks in a kitchen waiting to see if the soup is ready.  I’m not soup yet.  I don’t know when that will happen.  But I wake up each day and act as though I think it’s my last.  I try to be the best I can – loving and kind and forgiving.  Forgiving being the hardest part.  But I’m a work in progress.  Not soup yet.  And in the meantime, little miracles happen.  Little kindness.  Little insights.  And each night I’m glad I made it through one more.  And I pray that someone else is too.