Stories told at My Mother's Recipe

Annual Lasagna

Every April she gets a year older. Every April there is a party for her, attended by people celebrating that accomplishment. In this case the birthday girl is not taken out, rather the party is brought to her. Picture this: the decorated table and enough chairs for about eight people set up right next to her bed, in the same spot where her own grandmother's dining room table stood years ago. This birthday girl, in fact, lives in the dining room. Colorful balloons are tied to the hospital bedside rails and "Happy Birthday" swags are hung on the walls.

This annual birthday celebration occurs at lunch and is never catered. The food is not take-out or packaged. Rather, this meal features the labor of a multi-course home-cooked meal for the guests. The birthday girl doesn't sit at the table with us or share the same food. Depending on her health, some years she sits in her wheelchair and some years she is propped with pillows in bed, right there in her grandmother's dining room. At every birthday party her hair is newly dyed and she is dressed in a colorful new dress which matches the balloons. Bev, her longstanding caregiver, gets her all dressed up as if she had somewhere to go.

This homebound birthday party each April features hearty and healthy food which always includes Sicilian lasagna made by her son, the party organizer. Despite the fact that the birthday girl can't sit at the table or eat with a fork, she is honored by no slouch of a party. The guests celebrate the day of her birth in the distant past, as well as her present-day longevity, with the simple gift of a home-cooked meal, an honor to getting one year older.

Thyme N. Haff

2017 October 11

Dedicated to caregiver Stoneman and his mouthwatering lasagna