The more I learn about other cultures and customs, the more I think, Wow! I wish White people had that! Whether it’s Black aunties who’ll give you the side-eye if you’re not acting straight or random family gatherings like our Hispanic next-door neighbors have, we European-descended Americans don’t have anything like that. It’s about community, being connected to something bigger, stronger, and more timeless than what any individual one of us can be.
Not only is it about community, but it’s about keeping our heritage strong. We see this in the ofrenda. An ofrenda is a traditional Mexican altar to honor the ancestors, seen particularly around Dia des Muertos (Day of the Dead). Pictures of the ancestors are placed on it, and the family shares stories of each one. As Dia des Muertos arrives, they place food offerings on the altar.
That’s such a neat custom, isn’t it? In this way, Mexicans stay connected to their ancestors and their family histories.
I was reflecting on this over the weekend. My younger daughter turned fifteen last week, and since her birthday landed right in the middle of the week, we did the big birthday celebration all weekend long. It started with a breakfast of her choosing–biscuits with sausage gravy (homemade, of course). Last year I found this biscuit recipe that makes delicious, flaky biscuits, and every time I make them, I think, Man, Grandpa would’ve LOVED these! And it hit me. Just as the favorite foods of the deceased are part of the Dia des Muertos custom, we also have our own food customs.
There’s that coconut cake that’s baked and served every year at Christmas because “Santa” loved it. There’s that gelatin salad that is made the same way Mimi (what Peter called his grandma) made it and is on the table for Christmas dinner. There’s the tradition of experimenting with vegetable sides at Thanksgiving because that aunt would do that. And there’s the thought of, Man, Grandpa would’ve LOVED these biscuits! The favorite foods of our loved ones keep them in our memories.
We also have the picture displays. Maybe we don’t put up an ofrenda, but we have family picture walls. In my parents’ home in the upstairs hallway hang pictures of family members past and present, and Mom tells who each of them is and something about them. In my own home, we have family pictures hanging on the stairwell, and Peter and I have told the girls stories about them. We keep their memories alive if they’ve died, and those who are still alive stay close to our hearts in the sharing of our memories.
Maybe family picture walls and those cherished recipes–or those recipes that make us think of beloved departed relatives–are our gringo ofrendas. May our cherished family members live in our memories and hearts as we share their stories down through the generations.
Have you heard that one? It spun around evangelical circles for a hot minute on social media this spring. What does that even mean? Does she worship Ba’al, get her other-race husband to worship Ba’al, and go around killing rabbis and preachers? Probably not.
The “Jezebel spirit” is in any woman who doesn’t conform to the social contract as it’s established in western culture. The Jezebel spirit resides in women who are thinkers and talkers. This Jezebel spirit is in women who break the moulds of social conventions.
His name is Kevin*. Kevin has embraced the teachings of his evangelical, right-leaning church when it comes to the role of women in the household and society. At one point he was big on PromiseKeepers, a conservative Christian organization that promotes men taking back leadership in their homes, “by force if necessary” in the words of Tony Evans.
Kevin’s brother has a wife who isn’t into that mindset. She grew up in the church (neither Kevin nor his brother did) so naturally is in the role of spiritual leader of their home. At least, that’s what it looks like from the outside. Inside, it’s purely an “iron sharpens iron” situation. But Kevin’s sister-in-law is smart. He often accuses her of being “opinionated and outspoken.” She speaks her mind thoughtfully and tends to garner respect for it. So not only does she break the mould of how a proper, quietly obedient wife should behave, but the rest of his family approves of it.
Thing is, Kevin enjoys having discussions with her. They may not always agree, but she’s made him consider his beliefs in fresh ways and given him different perspectives on things. Their discussions are respectful and pleasant for both parties. Kevin’s brother likes taking a sideline on these, watching his wife hold her own but also watching over her in case something goes sideways.
Yet…
Kevin’s wife Karen* plays the quietly submissive wife around the family. She doesn’t contribute meaningful thoughts and certainly not anything especially deep. She just sits quietly and nurses wine coolers. She’ll occasionally make an effort to engage with some of the other women. Karen doesn’t go anywhere near Kevin if she can help it. Despite all outward appearances, it certainly seems that Karen is quite manipulative and controlling, something ironically that Kevin has accused his sister-in-law of being.
A couple of years ago, Kevin and Karen’s younger son spent about six months traveling around the nation. Their son’s girlfriend would go to see him every couple or few months or so, and Kevin would always go with her. He made no secret of the fact that he respected her and liked spending time with her. (To be fair, there was no hint of impropriety.) But personality-wise, she’s just like Kevin’s sister-in-law–the same sister-in-law who supposedly is “manipulative and controlling” and “outspoken and opinionated”!
So Kevin insults his sister-in-law, has declared he hates her, and has even suggested his brother divorce her. Yet, he secretly admires and respects her and has to see how happy Kevin’s brother and his wife are together (and who wouldn’t want one’s sibling to be happy?).
What we have here is cognitive dissonance and a serious amount of projection. Kevin wishes he could afford to take the financial and societal losses divorcing Karen would result in. (He places a great deal of importance on his reputation.) His own wife is controlling and manipulative. He disrespects his sister-in-law behind her back yet still enjoys engaging with her.
But Kevin’s not supposed to feel positive about these interactions in any way! His church teaches that women are supposed to be quietly submissive. They teach that the man is the head of the family. Yet, here he is supposing himself to be the head with no real control or power while also watching his brother not being the head but having as much agency in his marriage as his brother’s wife. Nothing is making sense to him; it’s not how he was taught to believe it should be.
So he goes in for the insults. He works the hate messages. He may even go so far as to think his sister-in-law has a “Jezebel spirit.” That blaming, insulting, and minimizing the woman schtick is the default for men when they’re faced with the cognitive dissonance between what’s real and what they believe, or between what they’ve always believed and what’s fresh and new in front of them now. Instead of adjusting their thoughts and beliefs, they double down on their animosity. They fall back on attacking women and saying they have “Jazebel spirits.” They do everything possible to keep from growing and maturing beyond where they are.
After my morning cup of coffee, I generally drink water all the rest of the day. Sometimes, though, it’s just a little bit chilly for water, but I want to keep my water levels up so I brew a cup of herbal tea. If it’s around lunchtime, that tea might be black or green. We’ve kept a stock of tea on hand for ages; I personally have since I was in college. When the girls were younger, we’d take tea in the afternoons. Sometimes Mary, my older, would help me make homemade scones to go with it.
A cup of black tea steeping. Am I the only one who feels like this takes forever?
Though tea time isn’t really a thing for us anymore, we still all drink tea on occasion, and our pantry is about 1/8 tea. Honestly, the last thing we need is more tea, though we tend to have more black tea than anything because, again, we don’t drink black tea after a certain time of day.
My aunt Susan died last September, leaving Mom in charge of her estate. Mom asked if we wanted the teas that Susan had had, and since she and I apparently had the same taste in tea, I said, “Sure.” The other evening–earlier this week–I dug into one of those boxes of tea. I didn’t think a whole lot about my selection: Green tea with ginger. I brewed it, added a little honey, and as I sat sipping it, it hit me. Ginger. Then I remember the box of peppermint herbal tea I’d also brought back. Ginger. And peppermint. Used to calm upset stomachs. Susan must have drank those to stave off the nausea from the chemo. Then my heart pinched as it thought about her and realized the discomfort and pain she endured for the three years she battled the cancer that would eventually take her life. #cancersucks
One day, it’s going to hit me, and I’ll be able to mourn her death. The last decade or so–maybe a little more–it was like Susan didn’t really want me and the girls as her nieces anymore. It was frankly kind of confusing. We saw her at the family “high holies”–Easter dinner, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. She was always a generous giver, and she remembered our birthdays. She was generally loving and fun when we came together at Mom and Dad’s and when we’d host the girls’ birthdays.
Something was off, though. Susan wasn’t a big fan of other people’s boundaries. When I declined to sit with Grandma while I was working an intense residency program, I got pushback. The job was only part of the reason behind my unwillingness to do it. I adored my grandma, even named my older daughter after her. But when I’d made a special trip a few days each week to stay with Grandma in the month leading up to my wedding, I never got any gratitude back. I didn’t get gas money, either, but that’s a little thing. I could suck up the lack of “Hey, thanks”; it was harder to tolerate all the criticism. Every day Susan would find something else I’d done wrong when I was doing the best I knew how without any guidance.
That’s just one example. There are others that I don’t see a point in going into. Susan used to have a small property in our county over in the spitting-distance-from-the-beach section that she’d come down to a few times during the year. After she sold it, she’d stay at a hotel on the island. When I found out she was coming this way, I’d invite her to drop by. If she didn’t want to do that, I offered that I could bring the girls over to the island. She couldn’t go to that part of the county without coming either three miles or fifteen miles from us, depending if she wanted to take the back roads or the interstate. She never responded to either offer. My mom was confused (she may still be) as to why I didn’t make more of an effort to see Susan when her illness kept her closer to home. Susan’s house is 2 1/2 hours away from us, one way. Maybe I didn’t feel the desire to do that when it seemed clear to me that she didn’t want to see us even when it would’ve required no effort on her part.
Susan had a penchant for drama, though she had zero tolerance for other people’s drama. Scott Lyon talks about holding grudges as a form of drama addiction, and that was definitely a gift Susan had. She once held a grudge for twenty years against a cousin who lived literally all the way on the other side of the country. She held people hostage with the threat of her grudges. Christmas Eve 2002, Grandpa had a heart attack. The hospital he went to had recently come under the auspices of the hospital where I did my internship and contract chaplaincy. I’d grabbed my employee’s badge as I raced out the door that night. We beat the ambulance (but we won’t talk about that). When we got word that the ambulance was a minute out, I clipped my badge on, introduced myself, and asked the charge nurse if I could wait by the ambulance bay. She allowed me to. Susan reported to the family, “Sara went back there and flashed her badge around.” Certainly sounds BiGgEr and more dramatic, doesn’t it? But it far from represents my professional demeanor in reality. (Did you know drama addiction’s a real thing? You can scope out this article on it here, and check out Scott Lyon’s book, as well. For you podcast lovers, Jordan Harbringer had Scott on his podcast.)
I don’t know what happened. Again, possibly it’s boundaries. The thing that will hit me one day is the realization that the cool aunt I had growing up is gone. I mean, she’s been gone for longer than she’s been dead, but there was always the hope, ya know? Susan and I had the best times when I was a kid. We went to the zoo with Grandma; my younger cousin was there once or twice, too. We went to the place at the beach. I could talk to her about things that I couldn’t talk to anyone else about. It was with Susan that I had pizza for breakfast the first time.
She showed up for me. She came to my dance recitals and graduations. She never married and never had any kids of her own. For seventeen years, I was it. Then my little (haha! He’s over six feet tall!) cousin was born. Susan doted on us and adored us. My cousin lives several hundred miles away so she didn’t get to see him but maybe once a year or so. She showed up for him, too.
One day, it’s going to hit me. I’ll be drinking a cup of tea or walking along a beach, and bam! The tears will pour out unchecked, and my heart will break. I’ll grieve losing the aunt I once had, and I’ll also grieve the loss of any opportunity for us to be family again, anything close to what we once were.
Just writing these words is a wakeup call to me. I have an honorary “auntie” who I text with routinely and meet up with for coffee every so often. But I still also have two blood aunts, one I haven’t really spoken to beyond Christmas cards since Mary ran away. I need to make sure I don’t again encounter “too late.”
It started innocently enough. All I was trying to do was find that one grocery store cookbook that held the recipe for the casserole I wanted to make for dinner. The hutch where we store our cookbooks was a mess, though, making even accessing that section of cookbooks a challenge. So I pulled off the huge stack of loose paper recipes–all those we’ve printed off from emails and websites over the years–and placed them on the table. What a mess! While I had them all off, I decided, Why not punch holes in them and get these bound like I’ve been meaning to do?
First, though, I found the cookbook I wanted. When we were dating and in the early years of our marriage, my husband couldn’t go grocery shopping without bringing one of those home. Sauerbraten noodle casserole with steamed red cabbage on the side… Mmmmm! So good!
This huge, disorganized stack of recipes had been making our hutch a cluttered disaster
This is what I started with. After about a half-hour or so of sorting and organizing them, I ended up with two 3-ring binders full of recipes, categorized by type of dish with categories in alphabetical order. My tween helped me, so there was some memory-making mixed in with the organization.
As I went through that stack of papers, pulling out what didn’t belong and seeing what I had, so many memories came at me, all tied to recipes and cooking!
Cranberry Orange Sauce–I found this recipe in the early days of our marriage at a website that was a humble alternative to All Recipes but is now a French snack food company’s website. I still make this sauce every year for Thanksgiving dinner and usually have enough to can a couple of small jars for leftovers.
Beef Stew–My dad sent my aunt Susan and me this recipe by email, and one of them made it for a family dinner we had to miss when our firstborn was in the Intensive Care Nursery. Mom brought my husband and me servings of it along with biscuits for dinner one evening while we were at the hospital.
Zucchini au Gratin–This was a side for a fun French meal I made when I was in Div school and our family was just made up of two. That night over dinner, my husband told me he wanted to join me on a long weekend mission trip that was coming up.
Taco Soup (x3)–You know when you lose a recipe, you have to print it off again? Yep, that’s this one. Except, I’ve made it so often, I pretty much have it memorized. It’s a family favorite. Paula Deen’s recipe. Look it up; you won’t be sorry. But then there was also the one from the now-French-snack-foods site and my Aunt Linda’s.
Butternut Harvest Soup–Also times 3. But I found the one that’s got my own custom seasoning tweaks written on the back. Super-win!!!
Gingerbread–Not cookies (though that recipe was in the stack, too). No, I’m talking about warm, spicy, fragrant, soft gingerbread, maybe with a lemon glaze on top. I first tasted this on a field trip to Duke Homestead when my firstborn was in daycare. Now I make it to go in an adorable Nordicware gingerbread boy and -girl loaf pan Susan sent me. Hmmm… Now I want to make gingerbread.
In this day of modern technology, recipe websites galore, and the handy-dandy online recipe storage tool known as Pinterest that we can access from any device, paper recipes are almost a thing of the past. But when’s the last time you sat down with your child or spouse with a recipe printed on paper and said, “I made this when” or “This recipe came from your grandma, and I remember that time…”? Having a much neater Mimi hutch (the hutch was handed down to us from my husband’s grandma) is valuable, but the stories of the recipes on it are treasures beyond measure.
