The containers are all washed and mostly returned to their owners except for my friend, Erica’s, baking sheet. It is still hard for me to ask for help, but Erica convinced me to accept meals from friends after my recent hip replacement surgery. She organized a meal delivery schedule, and, thanks to several friends, I was the grateful beneficiary of homemade food while recovering.
I’m not exactly sure what I was thinking, or not thinking, before surgery. My husband doesn’t cook, or maybe he would if I let him near the kitchen. But there was an incident with lentils and an entire onion when I was hangry one night and I never really recovered from that non-edible experience some 30 years ago. It is often the thought that counts unless you have to wait forty minutes for a pressure cooker to do its thing.
Thinking of surgery preparation, perhaps I imagined that I’d be happy eating toast or saltines with butter for two weeks or that we’d somehow be able to afford to have a meal delivery every night. Even better, if AI or computers could actually create and serve our favorite dishes just like the Food-a-Rac-a-Cycle on The Jetson’s cartoon–now that would have been useful.
When I’ve written about food before, I’ve looked at it from a “guilty pleasure” perspective. But watching neighbors cook and bake for my father before he died gave me a different perspective. As I collected fruit crumbles, donuts, pork chops, and bottles of wine from my father’s friends, I was reminded how these food deliveries are an expression of care and love.
The last week of my father’s life, he asked several times why people kept bringing food over. He was forgetful and losing his appetite and didn’t understand why the visits and food gifts were more frequent. My father knew he was dying, but I tried to balance honesty with comfort. I explained that a lot of times people aren’t quite sure what they can do for someone in his situation. When he kept reminding me he wasn’t hungry, I told him that people made him or brought him food to show they cared about him. He was quiet for a few minutes before he told me that he didn’t realize how many people liked him.
It was comforting to me to know that some of my father’s last thoughts were of his friends and how well he was regarded. His friends kept bringing my mom and me food after he died, and we’d find ourselves together in the kitchen crying while eating spoonfuls of potato salad because we couldn’t quite bear a whole meal yet.
I guess this was in the back of my mind when I rebuffed Erica’s food delivery offer several times. I wasn’t dying, my needs weren’t critical, and I didn’t want to impose on anyone. But when the weeks before surgery dwindled and my saltine plan didn’t seem feasible, Erica asked again and this time, I just said, “thank you.” She made me understand that I wasn’t asking for help, but that my friends all wanted to support me during a stressful time.
When we got home from the surgery center, my husband waited a few hours before he asked me what we were thinking about for dinner. At that point, I think I had some hard boiled eggs in the refrigerator and cans of soup in the pantry, but I couldn’t think of anything else beyond my opioid haze. Thankfully, the day after my surgery, the meals started coming. The food my friends made was wholesome and nourishing. Salads, pot roast, potato soup, enchiladas, lasagna—an embarrassment of culinary delights during a time when we are all struggling with our own grocery bills. Each meal reminded me of other beloved meals: my grandmother’s chicken soup, mom’s spaghetti and meatballs, and the turkey dinners my father and I made every Thanksgiving.
What helped me the most those two weeks post-surgery were the visits I had with friends when they dropped food off. It made me feel human, even though I was in pain and not very mobile. I was able to sit up, thank my friends, laugh a little, and check in on the outside world. One friend stayed for two hours, and we cackled about the horrible romance novels we were reading. I forgot to be embarrassed by my makeshift bed on the living room sofa, my compression stockings, or that colleagues from work saw me with uncombed hair and without lipstick. In other words, I was reminded how much I was loved and taken care of by my friends.
The generosity of others is humbling. When I read the news, I’m reminded how horrible people can be because of fear, hatred, or a combination of both. But when I reflect on how the world really works on a daily basis, I see the friends around me who may also be scared but continue to work hard, build and take care of their communities, and support each other. It’s not so much a “buy the world a Coke” moment as it is to remember who our friends are and that there are millions of groups of people like us getting through adversity one shared meal at a time, giving each other comfort as we can.
