A post I never wanted to write

Friends,

On the evening of June 24th, my husband John died. He was flying to Indiana to coach a power soccer meet (wheelchair soccer). About an hour before landing, he ordered a coke. Asked if he wanted to drink it, John said: “No, I’m tired.” he then dozed off. When the plane landed, his attendant was unable to rouse him.

John was 57 years old. He had Becker Muscular Dystrophy, and had been increasingly ill for some time.

John and I were together 33 years. He was the reason I learned to cook.

Taken with a Polaroid camera in my bedroom, May 1993.

He was the reason I continued to cook, as my skills increased and necessity expanded into pleasure. Over the years we cultivated personal rituals around specific celebrations: Christmas morning meant Bloody Marys, bagels, and lox. His May birthday was celebrated not with cakes, but the fruit tarts he so loved. Our anniversary meant steak, or very rarely, veal. The arrival of summer tomatoes at Berkeley Bowl was cause for celebration: I’d buy a container of fresh mozzarella, some good olive oil, arrange the ingredients on one of my Homer Laughlin platters and call it dinner.

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Since John died I have existed on bagels and the odd container of packaged ravioli. Moments before writing this, my housecleaner walked in with some Brazilian food. I don’t know the name of what she gave me, only that it was marvelous: a deep fried ball of chicken and cheese.

Will I cook again? Write? I believe so. But right now I am foundering in the morass of paperwork left after a sudden death. Also the grief. John was gravely ill for a long time. His death was not a surprise. This does not make losing him any less agonizing.

December 2011

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Eventually I will plan a memorial with John’s relatives. The information will appear here and online.

My apologies to readers for the break in posting.

Our wedding day, June 1, 1996. Photograph by Christine Pierce