Two Saturdays ago, I went crazy in the kitchen. I had spent the previous night sleeping on Shannon’s sofa (we had thought Wayne was on his way out that night, but he fooled us, hanging on for another five days) and was on edge, uneasy and uptight. (Pretty much how I felt around the very end of each of my pregnancies, but worse.) My parents showed up that morning for our planned work day, but I could focus on nothing beyond food. I bustled from counter to fridge, sink to stove, turning out a ridiculous number of new dishes, including the aforementioned ribs, totally aware that I was “nesting.” (So much of death parallels birth, I’ve discovered.)

For lunch, I made red beans, pico de gallo, guacamole, and salsa verde. It was a cilantro heavy meal, but it wasn’t till we sat down and dug in that I learned that my dad didn’t care all that much for cilantro … and neither did my mother. I’m not sure how I missed knowing that about them, though it could be that I blotted it from my mind, so horrified by their cilantro-freakish behavior that I refused to file it in my noggin.

(I’m still not sure how it’s possible that I, a cilantro lover extraordinaire, came from them, two cilantro haters. [Okay, so that’s a little strong. They both ate the food, and Mom even said that she actually enjoyed it, so they probably don’t really hate cilantro, they just don’t prefer it. But in my book, it’s pretty much the same thing. Cilantro is to be loved; any other opinions are an aberration.])

Despite my hostessing faux pas, I fully enjoyed my meal. The best part, I thought, was the salsa verde, a bright green salsa consisting of tomatillos, lime, garlic, serrano peppers, and, of course, lots of cilantro. It tickled me down to my cilantro-adoring toes.

It was my first time working with tomatillos. They had always intimidated me, what with their green hardness and mysterious papery husks.

But then I discovered Nicole’s recipe and decided it was time to grapple with my fears. So when I stopped by T and E Meats to pick up the rack of ribs, I ducked into the little Mexican market that squats in one corner of the parking lot. Clueless tomatillo shopper that I was, I snagged another customer, a Spanish speaking woman, and grilled her on the art of selecting the proper tomatillo. (They need to be firm, she said, not soft or squishy.)

The tomatillos turned out to be delightfully easy to work with. I simply pulled off the husk, rinsed the jolly green balls, and quartered them.

I tossed all the ingredients in the food processor, gave them a whirl, and, never minding that I hadn’t eaten breakfast yet, I popped open a bag of tortilla chips and dug in.

I promptly commenced to moaning and sighing (much to Miss Beccaboo’s bemusement), reveling in the sharp, tangy flavors, the juice running off my fingers and dripping all over the counter.

Fresh Tomatillo Salsa
Adapted from Nicole’s blog, Pinch My Salt

I used one serrano pepper and the salsa was only mildly hot; two would have been too much for the kids, but I would’ve still enjoyed it. You can, if you wish, replace the serranos with part of a jalapeño.

½ pound tomatillos, husked, rinsed, quartered
1 – 2 serrano peppers, washed, membrane and seeds removed
1 clove of garlic, peeled and roughly chopped
½ cup cilantro, packed
1 – 2 teaspoons fresh lime juice
½ heaping teaspoon salt

Combine all the ingredients in the canister of a food processor and pulse until finely chopped and saucy. Serve with tortilla chips.

To store, put the salsa in a tightly lidded container and keep it in the refrigerator. It will keep for at least a day, maybe longer (it didn’t hang around long enough for me to find out).

Yield: a generous cup.

About one year ago: White Chocolate and Dried Cherry Scones.

I’ve been breathing steadily for the past 34 years, never once stopping. I take breathing for granted, not even noticing the continuous flow of air in and out of my lungs (unless I try to run for more than thirty feet—then I notice my breathing very much). I know that everyone stops breathing at some point and that it happens all the time, yet when Wayne stopped breathing, I was shocked.

I was ready for Wayne to die. I had long ago accepted that he would die. Ever since I had known him, he’d had the tumor. (In fact, one of my first memories of Shannon is from a La Leche League meeting where I watched from afar as she told the other women about her husband’s brain biopsy and the holes that they drilled in his skull [that he wasn’t supposed to sneeze for a specified number of days struck us all as rather comical].) Over the years, I watched as Wayne slowly went downhill, becoming more dependent and less communicative. I listened to Shannon, learning from her as they waded through the murky unknown. While she and Wayne tried to rein in the tumor the best they could, they didn’t rage against it; they were matter-of-fact about the situation, accepting that things go wrong with the human body. And because Shannon and I, being the good friends that we are, share similar values and worldviews, I appreciated their down-to-earth perspective.

But then on Wednesday, the room abruptly hushed after Wayne’s labored, machine-like breathing, I felt, for the first time, anger. I screamed inside my head, This is so wrong! Wrong, wrong, WRONG! but I said nothing, and instead simply sat on the floor, listening to the muted voices, the sniffling, the sobs. Wayne’s body slowly growing cold on the bed above me, I felt stunned.

Wayne’s death was a gentle ending, yes, in many ways profoundly beautiful, but even so, part of it felt violent to me. A man in his prime, his life cut short, a door abruptly shut. It was over. Done. Wayne was dead.

My anger was fierce but fleeting. Now, I am simply sad, tired, drained. I held it together (for the most part) while Wayne’s friends (such a large group that they took shifts) carried the casket they had built themselves, while Pastor Jennifer knelt by the casket to bless Wayne, while I helped three-year-old Jedrek choose a daisy from my vase at the close of the graveside service, while watching Shannon, elegant in her black dress and heels, walk down the center aisle of the church, her children beside her. But then, after it was all over, the service, the lunch, the memory sharing, and Mr. Handsome and I walked back into the deserted sanctuary to collect our bags, I broke down. I cried hard, my face pressed into the shirt of my living, breathing husband.

On the way home Mr. Handsome suggested we stop by the grave. We piled out of the car to examine the gently sloping mound of crumbly dirt, the rectangular pieces of sod pressed down on top. A few of the flowers from the morning were left in the vase in the car, and Mr. Handsome, of his own accord, handed each of the kids a daisy to put on the grave. The girls stood theirs up on either side of the temporary marker, and the Baby Nickel “planted” his, patting the dirt up around the stem and then wiping his grubby hands on his good jeans.

Today I find myself on the brink of tears, relieved and calm, but still, waiting. After such an intense couple of weeks, I’m not sure what to expect, what will be required of me, what I will feel. But the hymn that Wayne and Shannon’s good friend sang during the memorial keeps running through my mind. It’s like a soothing lullaby, yet sob-inducing.

Life is slowly getting back to normal. My sleeping bag and pillow have been put away, our upstairs phone ringer is once again turned off, the funeral clothes are drying on the line, the bread baby is being resurrected. However, this experience is not something that I can tie up into a tidy package, writing about it in only one or two blog posts. There is a lot to be mulled over, lived through, and written about, so amid the recipes, the goofy kid vignettes, and the complaints of boredom and laundry, you’ll find bits and pieces of this story.

On the back page of the program for the memorial service, Shannon included a quote from C. P. Estes: If you can’t make it different, make it holy.

I’m working at it.

About one year ago: grocery shopping