Dear Mom e-Letter
Remembering, Celebrating, Healing

Volume 1, Issue 3
Grandma Betty's Hotdish
January 15, 2006

Dear Reader,

There are lots of reasons why we miss—or will miss—our moms when they pass on. Their special ways with food, concocting a dish with simple ingredients, yet a full, rich flavor that smells a lot like love, that becomes your family’s favorite comfort food.

My Mom’s special dish was actually a hot dish (sort of a Midwest term for casserole): a simple concoction of ground beef browned with onion, seasoned with salt and pepper, with vegetable soup, tomato sauce and elbow macaroni added and cooked until the noodles are done just right. We call ours “Grandma Betty’s Hot Dish,” and it’s the first thing I cook after every road trip.

Another reason we miss—or will miss—our moms is one that snuck up on me and landed with an emotional “thump” that physically hurt.

I had traveled to Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong with a group of other state travel representatives on a sales mission just weeks before Mom died. It was the biggest trip of my life. Once home I called Mom and did what I did every time I traveled: I told her about my trip, what I had done (well, some of it…she wouldn’t understand her daughter becoming a Geisha Girl, would she?), what I had seen, what I had eaten and learned. She once said she didn’t need to travel, because she traveled vicariously through me. (Yes, she actually used that word!)

Then she died suddenly. And shortly thereafter, I flew to Denver for the mission follow-up meeting. On the plane ride home, I had this choking feeling of deep sadness. I peered out the airplane window, looking at the black “nothing,” unable to identify the sadness. Then it hit me. I had lost my safe place to brag. That would be the first trip of my entire life when I couldn’t call Mom once I got home. I burst into tears, shaken, feeling very, very lonely.

Moms aren’t very fancy. At least mine wasn’t. But she had a pure heart and took immense pleasure in seeing her children do well. School papers were examined, book reports read, percussion practice tolerated, occasionally encouraged. (Poor Mom!) We were doing better than she did, going to college and having careers, and somehow, it was supposed to be that way. She always encouraged me to do my best, saying simply, if something was worth doing, it was worth doing well.

I could always call home and tell her about my trip, my latest adventure. It was a way of honoring her for raising me to be independent, educated, employed in a great job. She gets the credit for much of what I am. And my calling her was a way of my telling her that I was doing my best.

I can’t call home any more. But I have replaced that phone call with Grandma Betty’s Hot Dish. It’s pure comfort food, made in honor of Mom, and it consoles me.

It’s the first thing I make when my daughters come home, or when I visit them.

Everyone has their own version of Grandma Betty’s Hot Dish. What’s yours? What dish did your mom make that makes you remember her and the care she gave you? What do you cook for your children to convey to them that there truly is no place like home? (If you’d like to share your comments, I will try to include them in future e-letters.)

You can’t buy Grandma Betty’s Hot Dish. But you can cook it in love, and enjoy it with your family while they tell you about their journeys, their lives, their dreams, their hopes, their fears. You can smile as you become their safe place to brag, hoping they tell you more and more, and cherishing the thought that this moment, that very moment, is about as good as it gets. And you can hope for many, many more moments just like it.

ishing you great comfort food for your journey!

Dee Dee