Last month Kayakbiker wrote a diary about a crab feast and it hit me like a ton of bricks.
I tried to write a comment but too many memories started bouncing around in my head, including one in particular.
A special welcome to anyone who is new to The Grieving Room. We meet every Monday evening. Whether your loss is recent or many years ago, whether you have lost a person or a pet, or even if the person you are "mourning" is still alive ("pre-grief" can be a very lonely and confusing time) you can come to this diary and process your grieving in whatever way works for you. Share whatever you need to share. We can't solve each other's problems, but we can be a sounding board and a place of connection.
So many of my memories of my mother have to do with food. Some of that is bad, since I adopted her habit of compulsive overeating as a way of dealing with life's difficulties, and internalized the "food is love" meme that had been in my family for generations.
But when I try to look back at it without that kind of judgment, food WAS her primary way of expressing love. Even when I had to do without clean clothes, a warm place to sleep, or a safe babysitter, I always had enough to eat. Even when she did not have enough to eat. That was the only constant in her caretaking. I never went to bed hungry.
And some of the most powerful and positive food memories center on crab feasts. It was a payday treat when mom had worked overtime. Although her sister knew how to steam crabs live, I never remember my mother doing so. She was squeamish, as I was, about the sound of the claws scraping the underside of the pot lid as they tried to escape, and the eerie squealing sound they made in their distress.
So we bought crabs already cooked. We had favorite crab shack places we would go. When my mom and I lived in S.E. near the Maryland border, we had a favorite place on Route 5 (that as far as I know is still there). I don't know the name of the place—I never heard anyone refer to it by a name, and don't know if there is even a sign on the door with a name. It is just known in the neighborhood as "the crab place".
Even out in the parking lot the smell of Old Bay seasoning hits you. Walk in the door and the first thing you notice is a large sign on the wall that says THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS "EXTRA LEGS". The heat from the steamers is overwhelming. The woman serving the crabs, old before her time for so many reasons, is drenched in sweat as she quickly and efficiently takes and fills orders from the people in line. If anyone had the nerve to ask for extra legs she would wordlessly gesture toward the sign with her long handled tongs.
Mom would always splurge on the jumbo crabs.
After we got home, with a dozen (or more) in large brown grocery sack (double bagged), we'd cover the kitchen table with newspaper, set the brown bag in the middle of the table, and tear the end of the bag open. The smell would fill the whole apartment as the crabs spilled out. Large glasses of water and paper towels were the only other things on the table, except for a nutcracker or the handle of a dinner knife to crack open the legs. We'd always ask them to put "extra seasoning" in the top of the bag -- a mixture of coarse ground salt, Old Bay, and other spices, and it would be all over the crabs and the newspaper, so that we could dip pieces of crab meat in the seasoning. I never ate the yellow stuff inside—i thought it was crab poo! I wiped it on the newspaper or used paper towels. Between the two of us we could easily eat a dozen jumbo crabs. Easily. Maybe a dozen and a half if there were no side dishes at the table. There was no point in buying crabs just to have two or three. The whole point of a crab feast was to have a feast! And since crabs could not be refrigerated or saved for the next day in shell, and you had to go to the trouble of picking them, you might as well eat them.
After gorging on crab we'd just wrap up all the shells in the newspaper and throw everything in the outside garbage immediately.
I've been living in New England for 38 years now and never caught the lobster bug. The thing I continue to miss most about the DC area is Chesapeake Bay hard shell crabs. And part of the reason I miss them is the good memories associated with them.
Back in the late 1980s, at the beginning of our reconciliation years, I invited my mom to come visit me. It was the first time I invited her to stay at my apartment. The foliage was great that year and I promised her a foliage drive to Vermont. I did not know until much later how excited she was about the trip.
When I met her at the airport she had a suitcase and a small cube-shaped makeup bag. My mom didn't wear everyday makeup, but I figured she used the makeup bag for toiletries, as I do when I travel.
After we got back to my apartment and settled in, my mom was bursting with her secret. She handed me the makeup bag and asked me to open it.
As soon as I unzipped it and saw a lumpy brown paper bag I started to cry.
She had brought me a dozen jumbo hard shell crabs.
She had carried them on the airplane in the makeup bag, which somehow had contained the telltale smell of crab seasoning. She had kept it a surprise for hours (very hard for her) and the look on my face must have been worth it. Laughter, tears, licking my lips. I thanked her, hugged her, could not believe it. Cried some more. Laughed some more. It was a heartfelt moment on so many levels. An acknowledgment of how much I missed my hometown. How much I missed happier days with her before our estrangement.
When I read Kayakbiker's diary that memory flooded my mind. Full and bright as if it were yesterday instead of almost 25 years ago. Tears sprang to my eyes.
But they were not only tears of grief. They were also tears of joy. My mommy loved me. She tried so hard to show it. Though she did not always succeed, those crabs were a love offering that worked. I smile at my memory of the look on her face too: "I did something right. I made my baby happy." She took such joy in my joy.
There were so many times she had tried to make things right and I pushed her away, or brushed off a gift that was clearly a special effort to please me. I still weep at the thought of all the times I hurt her like that. How I wish I had been more forgiving towards her sooner! But that was the depth of my pain in those years.
By this time I had begun to learn my lesson about accepting her as she was and receiving the love symbolism behind weird or inappropriate gifts. But this gift was so perfectly full of love in every way. The time and effort it took to drive out to purchase it and carefully wrap it and pack it. Carrying it on the plane. Keeping it a surprise. At that time it was the best surprise gift I had ever gotten. Most important of all, it carried the promise that we could be again as close as we once were.
"I did something right. I made my baby happy." We were happy in that moment. We had not had a moment like that together in many many years. Our visit was off to a perfect start.
That weekend I took her apple picking and on a foliage drive. We had a wonderful relaxed and happy time together. It was the beginning of our reconciliation after almost 20 years of estrangement.
And remembering it a few weeks ago made me smile. For days afterward. And I am smiling now.
There is a stage in the grief process where happy memories are allowed to be happy memories again.
I have more and more moments like that these days, just past the five and a half year mark.
Instead of an aching reminder of what has been lost, these memories spark equally deep gratitude for the feast of love that was.
Gratitude for the timelessness of genuine love that, once experienced, can never die.
To those of you who are suffering, I can only say, "Take the love that is offered, it is not a cure, but it is a balm to ease you through." To those who are further down the road, "Thank you for hanging out to help the suffering." And to all of you, "Thank you for being online, wherever and whoever you are. You are precious." h/t nancelot
Here is a link to
previous diaries in The Grieving Room series.