As I stood over the scrambled eggs, cooking slowly over low heat, and adding grated cheese near the end, I thought over the thousand Sunday mornings, sitting at a kitchen table in Annandale, or Ocean City, or Linwood, waiting for the laden platters to hit the table while reading the comics. Every Sunday morning of my childhood, after returning home from Church, my mother cooked breakfast for our family. The combinations varied around sausage, bacon, or ham, around pancakes or French toast, but we always had scrambled eggs, cooked slowly with cheese folded in. At the time, it was almost invariably Velveeta. I use cheddar now. She cooked in a large cast iron skillet that had been seasoned over decades, oftentimes with bacon fat. She left the eggs loose and moist, and it was not until much later that I realized this was not common among my friends. Their parents cooked their eggs to a dried browned crumble and never added cheese.
My mother died this past holiday season on an early Saturday morning. It is such an unsettling feeling that slides across the background of grief at losing your mother. She was the anchor. In speaking with my brother, I told him that I felt homeless, truly homeless, for the first time in my life. I felt un-moored at age 52. Her home was the home that, while I may have left physically many decades ago, never quite let go of.
I suppose we all respond differently at times like this, but I gravitate to the kitchen. As the news was passed around our family earlier that morning, we gathered at my brother's home to talk about what needed to be done next. As supplies trickled in: a box of coffee from Dunkin Donuts, donuts from Dot's Bakery, some muffins, bagels, and bread, I foraged in my brother's kitchen for some stuff to make the breakfast. I found some ham, eggs, leftover steak from the night before, and began to assemble a meal at the stove. While the conversation swirled around the house, and condolences passed from cousins, friends, and in-laws, I stood quietly at the stove stirring eggs, turning bacon, and thinking of Sunday mornings.
I once heard my mom debate the preparation of scrambled eggs with her best friend from childhood. She advocated whipping the eggs until frothy and cooking them slow, unlike Betty, who believed in stirring slowly and cooking quickly. I realized that in this moment, this was my connection to my mom. Platters of breakfast food hit the table again this morning; we mourned her passing; and I realized that she was always only a kitchen away from me.
