170. More than Sustenance – Jenny Rosenstrach

I got a text from my husband around 3:00 on a gray Wednesday in October. He was in his office. “Hospice called. I’m coming home now and will leave for Virginia soon after.”

Virginia was where he grew up, where his dad had been living, and living with Parkinson’s, for the past eight years. We had gotten this call a few times before, but that day, it felt more urgent. I cobbled together a babysitting plan for our two dogs—our kids are in college so that was taken care of—packed a duffel bag with some jeans and running clothes, then went to the kitchen to figure out some sort of meal for the road.

I write about food—specifically dinner—for a living, which might make it easier to understand why the spice mixture (cinnamon, cumin, smoked paprika, curry) that I had been planning to use on a skillet shrimp for dinner, was already mixed and waiting on the counter. I wondered if I should abort that plan and pack some peanut butter sandwiches. It seemed ridiculous to go ahead with this kind of recipe, to worry about spices and flavors, and even eating dinner, given what was happening. But it would only take fifteen minutes, so I started cooking—simmering water for five-minute couscous, sautéing the shrimp in a little butter, tossing in the spices, then dolloping yogurt and packing it all up in to-go containers I’d saved from a deli. I stacked them in a Trader Joe’s shopping bag along with two cookies and a single cheap IPA for the passenger (i.e., me).

A few hours later, I found myself spoon-feeding my husband his shrimp dinner, making sure he had a little bit of everything in each bite, while he drove south on I-95. It was dark and starting to drizzle. We were almost in Delaware, the highway crammed with rush-hour traffic and trucks spewing exhaust. But “How Lucky Can One Man Get,” the famous John Prine song, was playing, and I weirdly felt a rush of gratitude. It wouldn’t be an easy weekend; my father-in-law would die three days later. But in that exact moment, with that song playing, and that undeniably delicious shrimp and couscous dinner, I felt privileged to be there, doing my small part to take care of the caretaker.

That night, and countless other times, cooking made me feel useful, in control when things decidedly weren’t.

– Jenny Rosenstrach