What a Gift

 It happens every time I make sauce.  I chop the onions and garlic, and the second I scrape them into the pot with the olive oil, I think of my dad.  He stands behind me as I stir them around and says "wait until the onions are clear, then you can add the tomatoes."  

It happens every time I roll the meatballs. I think of my Aunt Carolyn, and her telling me not to make them sinkers.

Today was the same. But today, I had another voice - a laugh actually, echoing in my head.  The laugh of my cousin Maryann.  I think it was last year, I posted on Facebook that I was making a pot of sauce with thirty meatballs.  She immediately texted me, and said, "oh, can I get some of your sauce and meatballs?"  The pot went from four cans of tomatoes to eight, and the meatballs doubled to sixty.  When it was done, she showed up with tupperware and took it home.  I got texts that entire evening thanking me.

I wish I could've done it again today, but Maryann died this summer.  A crushing loss for the family.

 I took Dovi to the dog park today, and there was a woman there, calling her dog. "Gracie, Gracie, come here."  I thought about my Gracie and how she would've hated the dog park.  She would've growled at every dog, and she wouldn't have left my side.

On the way home, I thought about Gracie, then about my sauce bubbling on the stove, and then saw my brother's face, then my dad's, then Maryann's, while the live version of Racing in the Street played in the background, and I cried. It was one of those hiccup-kind-of-cries where it comes out of nowhere, like a sneeze.  I wondered how many times it happens during the week, and how many times I stop immediately. Today, I didn't. I let the tears fall.

How amazing that a song, a pot of sauce, or a simple name can evoke such sharp images and memories. So sharp that they open your heart up, and you just feel it, you taste it, you smell it - you live it all over again.

What a gift.