Global Pandemic & Your Red Binder

It’s been awhile since I last wrote/talked to you. I could claim that it was because I was busy, that I’ve lost track of time. But I have thought about it every Friday since I last wrote. I don’t really have a good reason for not writing/talking but I’m doing so now so that should mean something, right?

I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately. With you having been a health care professional I keep finding myself wondering what your life would be like if you were alive and working right now. I keep wondering what kind of things you would be talking to me about if you were here to watch the news and read all the articles online. I wonder if you would be as terrified as I have been the past few days. But I’ll truly never have any of the answers to these questions because we’ve never lived through anything like this before.

But then I think to myself, you would probably talk about the history of the Spanish Flu. We would probably listen to This Podcast Will Kill You together, or at least talk to each other about all the latest episodes. We would discuss how everything is rapidly changing right now but it’s promising that they’re already doing trials for some vaccines.

It’s an incredibly difficult time to be without you. I don’t know who to talk to about my fear because everyone is afraid but no one seems to want to talk about it. So this platform, where I talk to my dead mom through blog posts seems like the best place. I know we would be talking daily if you were here to talk to. I know you would be incredibly well read about this stuff because that what you used to do about everything, read stuff. I’m trying to stay well read but it’s hard because there is so much to read and not all of it true.

As I mentioned I’ve been struggling. I’ve been crying a lot, sorry Jack. But today I went over to Dad’s and I burst into tears because he wouldn’t hug me, he ended up giving me a hug but the stress is still here. But this story brings me to the second half of this title. While I was over at Dad’s he gave me your red recipe binder!

We, your children and Craig, have been looking for this binder since we moved out of the Taft house. I know I packed it when we were cleaning out our kitchen but I couldn’t remember which box it got put in or where the box ended up. Basically finding your red binder brought such a light into this dark place I’ve been living in the past few days.

I looked through it briefly and it brought back so many happy memories I have with you. I found just a list of ingredients but dad let me know that it was a recipe for guacamole, the avocados were assumed.

I guess the lesson I learned from today is that even in the darkest of moments there are glimmers of light. Thank you for leaving your red binder! I can’t wait to make more memories with these recipes.