A sister is a built-in best friend. She loves you unconditionally
and without judgement or competition. She knows all your stories and
she can communicate with you without speaking a word. She listens and
empathizes and gives advice and supports. At least mine did. My
sister, Lauren, and I were a package deal; two pieces of a set from the
day my parents brought me home from the hospital. She died in January
2011, at the age of 30, and I was lost. There isn't much I can remember
from those awful first few months, but one thing I do remember is being
completely overwhelmed by food: selecting it, purchasing it, preparing
it, eating it. Then I landed in the emergency room with gall stones,
being told to stick to an extremely low fat diet (far from the diet I
was following at the time, consisting mostly of pizza, hot dogs, and
chicken nuggets, when I bothered to eat at all.) I was whining and
moaning about this radical diet change to my aunt, Laura, and she
suggested a long-distance cooking club. We could send recipes out over
email and cook things on the same night to make it feel like we were
cooking together. Being someone who thrives on an assignment I ran with
the idea and the Nanner Cooking Club was born.
Lauren, whom I called Nanner when I was too little to say Lauren,
loved to cook. In the kitchen she could find solace, something that
didn't come easily to a woman who took the world so seriously. She
loved experimenting with new recipes and was always trying to suck us
into her passion. Cooking is a way to feel connected to her; this club
is a way to feel connected to everyone else. I live in the Pacific
Northwest with the rest of my family being spread throughout the Midwest
and East Coast. Grief can be terribly isolating even when you are
surrounded by loved ones. Being far away from everyone else who loved
Lauren makes the loneliness almost unbearable at times. This club gave
us a forum and topic, other than our intense and unending pain, on which
to focus.
Simply put... this saved me. My sister died and this is how I survive.
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