Henry and me in an unretouched photo, last Saturday
Henry turned ninety-two on Sunday.
If you're new here and/or don't already know, Henry was married to my late mother for thirty-seven years.
Mom passed away in 2020.
Henry lives in Greenville, less than a two-hour drive from us, in the house he shared with my mother.
For someone of his age, it's remarkable that he keeps the big house clean and also does a great deal of the yard work.
(He has said that although he misses my mother, he enjoys living alone. That doesn't explain why he has been ready to propose to half a dozen ladies in the last four years, but we'll take him at his word.)
Since Mom passed away, my sister Kay and I have done what we can to help with his meals. Certain close friends have been thoughtful of Henry in that way too.
Three small banana breads rather than one big loaf
For example, every Sunday after church, Henry eats lunch with Kay and her husband and whomever else happens to be there.
Whenever I visit, I bring food to have that day, with Henry and my sister and her husband and whomever else joins us -- yes I always make plenty -- and to put leftovers away for the next day or two.
I never, ever go empty-handed.
(Audrey calls me Meals on Wheels, an inside joke originating from our both being fans of Twin Peaks. IYKYK.)
As well, both the eldest and the youngest of Henry's four daughters, who live in distant states, have visited several times and made meals ahead for him, leaving them in the freezer.
This is even though Henry tends to complain about cooking smells, even as his meals are being cooked.
(How one can apply heat to food in order to cook it, without there being cooking smells, is beyond all of us.)
Our darling Dagny
At the same time, he has expressed that he enjoys home-cooked meals so much more than whatever convenience and/or processed foods he subsists on in their absence.
Well duh.
So, since TG and I had given Henry two nice shirts for Father's Day in June, and he truly is a man who has everything, I decided that for his birthday, I would prepare several lunches and take them to him as a gift.
(Henry rises early and has his breakfast of oatmeal and coffee, then eats his main meal at noonday. In the evening he eats a bowl of cereal with half a banana.)
(My mother used to say that she would buy the smallest bananas she could find at the store, hoping that just once Henry would slice the whole thing into his cereal.)
(But no! she'd continue. Even if she found a banana that was three inches long, Henry would cut it in half and leave the uneaten portion on the counter to use in his cereal the next evening.)
We met this past Saturday at noon, at the Cracker Barrel in Simpsonville, about an hour away for us and a forty-minute drive for Henry.
Lovingly prepared sirloin steak in pan sauce
(Yes he still drives; the SCDMV recently renewed his license for eight more years. If you're in the Greenville area, look out because Henry has a lead foot and lives/loves to drive.)
Mike and Audrey and Dagny joined us, and we had a nice lunch and chatted for about an hour.
Henry was due back in Greenville by three o'clock for celebratory cake and coffee at my sister's, so after lunch we walked out to the parking lot and I gave him his vittles.
TG had set up the big cooler with ice in the back of our car and I had a nice large box from Costco, for Henry to transport his delicacies.
I'd made chili earlier in the week, and set aside a generous container of that for him. I'd fixed him a small meatloaf, three barbecued chicken tenders, and a sirloin steak with a delicious pan sauce.
Sides were corn muffin tops (wonderful with chili), mashed potatoes, squash casserole, and sweet corn.
For desserts and/or noshing I made him three mini-loaves of banana nut bread. Audrey had also brought him a treat: homemade oatmeal chocolate-chip cookies.
We got the food transferred from the cooler to the box and into the trunk of Henry's car, and off he went to put everything away at home.
Dagny and her great-grandpa Henry
Later that night he called me. He sounded near tears. Unhappy and overwhelmed.
The issue was that I had given him too much. It's enough for twenty meals! he exclaimed, his voice querulous.
(Which was untrue; I had not given him enough for twenty meals. Not even close.)
I told Henry as much, and gently reminded him that what I had done was cook for hours on a sweltering day when I would have just as soon not turned the oven on, so that he would have a number of freshly made home-cooked meals to put in his freezer.
And that, with all due respect, what might be in order is an attitude of gratitude.
But he wondered, in a worried tone, how long the meals could possibly last in the freezer.
I told him what I'm pretty sure he already knew: that in theory they would last indefinitely, but he would likely have consumed all of the food within a few weeks, even if he ate from them every other day.
I think the real issue was, he was balking at the task of dividing the meals into separate containers and placing them in the freezer.
Squash and zucchini casserole, from scratch
All of which would have taken perhaps fifteen minutes.
You can lead a horse to water ...
(The reason I didn't perform that service for him is that, one, I didn't want to give him all of my storage containers, and two, I didn't know how much he would want of any given thing in a single meal.)
Life is about choices.
At any rate, I guess if I were to repeat this performance, I would buy sectioned single-meal containers and dole out the helpings so that he has only to put one dish per meal in the freezer, and bring one dish out at a time to defrost and microwave.
The only thing is, to quote the cute pirate: I won't be making that mistake again. Next time he's getting a ten-dollar gift card to Chick-fil-A.
(This pirate may be short on disposable storage containers but she is long on memory.)
Soon enough, however, I imagine that Henry will have the ability to see what can be, unburdened by what has been.
Our Mike, with Audrey. Mike says he's always smiling on the inside.
He'll eat the dishes I prepared especially for him, and enjoy them, and that will be the end of it.
Oh dear. Have you been in a situation where you felt that no good deed went unpunished?
Tell me about it.
Meanwhile, today is Mke's birthday. I have to go and get ready for his party. I'll tell you about it later in the week.
And that is all for now.
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Happy Tuesday
