Today’s a beautiful spring day, and while it’s easy for me to self isolate in winter and functionally end up doing it all on my own, this nice weather makes me realize how sad this is really going to be, for me and everyone.
It’s a sad time of year anyway because my dad’s birthday is on the 29th. This year I was going to be away and visit friends—a great way to honour my dad who loved pals and travel both. I thought that, or just the passage of time, might make this day easier. The media discussion and general fear of the potential loss of many of our older loved ones because of COVID is also, of course, not making my own loss seem easier. Just as I think I, and many of us, look to nature in times of grief which is complicated when the natural world is dying all around us, so too do I look to spring scenes of life going on, people together giving life meaning and all that, which is also not possible when the world is in a state of self isolated deadly pandemic.
The food thing though. This is sad too. At the base of course food is a basic physical need. But after that food is so much of our cultures, families, meaningful moments and holiday, friendships, celebrations, and emotional treats even. The panic buying… I don’t want to be too judgemental because I understand that some people might be scared and overdo it out of a genuine feeling of uncontrollable anxiety. But I find I’m starting to get stressed about meeting my physical needs—I’m on a medical diet for IBS and need some foods and can’t eat others, and I’m becoming stressed by the cleaned out shelves. So today I went through our freezer and cupboard and made sure we had two weeks of stuff as advised on one of the daily COVID update, both to be confident we’re set for that but also so I could feel confident in preparing the other shelf stable food we have, now or as per usual, like some noodles or whatever.
There are some things in the cupboard that are especially emotional. A container of caraway seeds my dad—who could no longer drive because of chemo neuropathy—has my mom drop off for me when I was sick so I could make his cure-all caraway and potato soup. A bag of expired pickled mustard greens we bought on one of our trips to T&T after we got the wheelchair for him—the very first thing we did, actually, though I think we got these on a later trip. These thing are in the cupboard because they’re technically food, but they’re not in there because I plan to eat them. They’re mementos made of food—one of our favourite and strongest shared things in addition to art.
I very strongly associate many favourite foods, or the idea of food as an adventure to share with others, with my dad. Like I said, going to favourite grocery stores like T&T and the Hong Kong Market were our first trips when we got the wheelchair, aside from art galleries and museums (also closed now). I think this strange food environment is going to make his birthday hard. We’re not having a famine or true food shortage but people do keep beating me to the punch at the store (I don’t want to go early when it’s busy and get close to people—that’s the main thing we’re supposed to avoid, right?) and I’m not sure how long this behaviour is going to last. Maybe next week my family will still be able to get some takeout from a favourite restaurant of my dad’s, but we can’t sit together to eat it. Nor could we cook something together and enjoy it.
Last year I went to Scarponi’s and bought my dad’s favourite things from the deli and some cake, and I ate lunch with him at his resting place. I brought him flowers from Co-op too. I went to the Esker where we had such beautiful experiences of art together. For dinner we gathered with friends in a busy restaurant—Raj Palace—my dad’s favourite Indian place—and sat together and enjoyed a delicious meal and fun chat.
I find it a little hard to talk about the emotional and social needs related to food as I know some people don’t get their physical food needs met, and that’s not ok, and I don’t mean to sound oblivious or like a total tool. But I think a lot of us will also feel the lack of some of the emotional, social needs we have around food in these coming days, weeks, and months. I certainly will. I’m trying not to be afraid of COVID and to take care of my emotional well-being—to follow the directives on keeping myself and others safe, and to take solace in how enthusiastically everyone I know has picked up these measures. But the idea of eating a can of no salt mushroom soup mixed with water on my dad’s birthday is really, really sad. Just as we’ll miss each other on the days we want to spend with each other, I think we’ll miss all the social parts of eating together. I don’t really have a point. It’s just one more thing to grieve in this time of grief. It’s a personal grief—me and my dad—and it’s a large-scale social grief many will feel. I remember how important it was bringing my dad favourite foods in the hospital. What if people can’t even visit their loved ones? It’s all just sad. That’s all.