Today my oldest daughter served me breakfast in bed. Late
last night I could hear my daughters talking in their room. Every couple of minutes
they would come into my room further delaying their bedtime. Early the next morning my sister called to ask if I was picking up my
niece. I hadn’t been planning on that so I threw on clothes and headed out
alone. When I got home I went back to bed, pulled the covers up
over my head and thought about staying that way for the rest of the day. Noise
from the kitchen made me nervous but my daughter is eight and she has to
learn how to do things on her own. Breakfast arrived on a wooden
cutting board. Fresh strawberries peeked out of the milk in my oatmeal. Jill
had lovingly buttered toast, prepared a fruit cup and finished it off with a glass
of cold clear water.
Several Kodak moments later I sat down to eat. My
daughter stood by
me until I asked
if she was hungry. Together we made short work of the wealth
of food on my tray. Back in the kitchen I threw the strawberry tops
down the
garbage disposal. It was hard not to think about what would have
happened if my
daughter had cut herself with the steak knife she had used to cut up
berries. Dutifully I uploaded pictures of my breakfast tray to
Facebook. Dishes went into the dishwasher and when that was done I
started
cleaning up the living room. Breakfast in
bed was sweet but what really touched me was the notebook I found
that listed all
of my favorite foods. Food restores people. It nourishes them. Food
says things
that words never could and seeing that list made me realize that
despite our
difficulties my daughter
loves me just as much as I love her.