If there's no point crying over spilt milk then there's certainly no point crying over spilt pilaf, even if that pilaf includes both white and wild rice and savory vegetables and mushrooms and even if it was in my favorite casserole dish that slipped right out of my hands and spilled all over the floor that I just mopped YESTERDAY and even if sharp ceramic shards scattered throughout the rice pilaf made it unsalvageable--but since there's no point crying over spilt pilaf, I must have been crying over something else.
I blame the phone call that came between the assembly of the pilaf and its ultimate disassembly on the floor. It was, in some ways, a long-awaited and welcome phone call from the mother of the woman who died in our creek last month (read it here). Since that traumatic night I've often thought of the family and wondered how they're doing, but my attempts to contact the survivors have been thwarted.
The caller proved two comforting facts: the little girl we rescued from shivering in the creek that night is fine, and her dead mother died instantly of blunt-force trauma rather than drowning, which means we'll no longer have to agonize over whether we could have saved her if we'd done things differently. So that's good. But we spoke for quite some time and it became clear that some lives defy comprehension and there's really not much we can do about that.
I would really like to see the little girl again, maybe even establish a relationship, but at this point the obstacles seem insurmountable. However, the family is planning to erect a roadside shrine in memory of their daughter and they promised to let us know when they're coming so we can have a chat. Maybe we'll figure out how to maintain a connection with a little girl who crashed into our lives out of nowhere and threatens to disappear once again into that same oblivion without leaving any mark.
The rice pilaf didn't leave any mark either, and the broken casserole is already out in the trash. Everything is entirely back to normal, so there's no call at all for tears. None whatsoever. So why do I need a Kleenex?
4 comments:
/comfort
So very sad.
Thank you for the update. I've been wondering whether you'd ever know any more. I'm very glad that your efforts were as effective as they could be, and the little girl is as okay as she can be.
And I hope Santa (or somebody) brings you a new favorite casserole dish for Christmas (or a twin of the old; there's always ebay, where I've found duplicates of a few kitchen items that carry happy memories. Not quite the same as having the actual bowl I used to bake cakes with my own mother -- who died when I was some years older than your night visitor, but still quite young, and I have done okay, thanks to strong support from family and community -- but still more cheering than a generic bowl with no such associations).
Thanks! It's funny how attached I can get to basic kitchenware.I remember the first time I read Judy Olausen's book Mother, full of photos of her mother posed in various settings decorated with authentic 1950s-era stuff. One photo includes a mixing bowl my mother used to have--or maybe still has--and I was so excited to see it in the photo! It's just a bowl, but it's also a reminder of happy times in my mother's kitchen.
I've been wondering about the family too. Thanks for the update. Betsy
Post a Comment