My husband and I received a note today from a man who just buried his wife of 60 years. Instead of the standard note thanking us for cards, flowers, food and prayers, this one just says, “Thank you for eating cherries with me when I needed a friend.”

I think of John sitting at his dining room table, writing a big stack of thank-you notes to a long list of friends and family members, and it makes me sad, sadder than Hope's death did. This note is juxtaposed in my mind with notes I’ve just received from a class of college grads my daughter’s age, including some who have sat at my table being instructed in the fine art of writing polite correspondence. My children will tell you they’ve been bludgeoned into writing thank-you notes. I prefer to call it coaching. Until today, it hadn’t occurred to me that some day each of them might be sitting in a too-quiet house, writing about memorial contributions, casseroles, kind words.  I didn’t mean to launch them in that direction.

Although Hope passed away last week, John has been alone at his dining table for a long time. Hope developed dementia and lost her memories, and he lost her. I’ve been taking over casseroles for several years now, and thinking about what I’d say at her funeral. We’ve been visiting, praying with him, looking out for him.

 But what he’s especially thankful for is none of that. It’s that on the day  she died, we sat quietly beside him on our front porch, watching the sun go down and spitting cherry seeds over the rail.

*****

If you had asked me, when I was a young woman, to imagine that some day I would have a whole section in my recipe box devoted funeral meals. I would have laughed. Sure, I’d have a recipe box, and it would be filled with gourmet recipes for stylish dinner parties. I was going to go places and do things.

I  have, and one of the things I have done in this place is cook simple food that provides comfort when words fail. My recipe box has cards for baked chicken breast for 48, brunch casserole for 60, shredded barbecued pork for an infinite number in multiples of a dozen. I can make whole- wheat rolls in my sleep. I always have foil pans of cheesy potatoes in my freezer. I’ve even made green beans with mushroom soup and French-fried onions, because if that’s what makes someone feel better, it’s a very small thing to do.

Not many years ago, Hope helped with funeral dinners. Last week, women a generation and two younger cooked hers. My own mother is sliding into dementia.  Few of her peers are well enough to slip out of a funeral service during the final hymn and gather to make last-minute preparations in the church kitchen. I am on the front lines now.

*****

My daughter has also moved forward a generation. A brand new college graduate, she’s moving into a new community. She can choose to take her place in the kitchen, or not. She doesn’t have to be one of the women who cooks. She has other choices, but she realizes that if all those traditions are to go on, someone has to take responsibility for them. They don’t just happen. Someone has to plan the menu and call the other people who will bring the food, make the coffee, wash the dishes and stand quietly in the kitchen, making sure that everyone gets fed. Almost always, those people are women.

Not always, though. After Hope moved into the nursing home, John could be counted on to bring his signature chocolate cake, made from Australian cocoa.  He loves chocolate, so he learned to make cake just the way he likes it. He knows how to operate the coffeemaker and the dishwasher. He’s willing to stand in the kitchen.

*****

The day before Hope’s service, I went by the cemetery to make sure everything was in order. The grave wasn’t finished; occasionally I could see the top of my husband’s head bob up above the grass. Graves are still dug by hand in that cemetery (called, by locals, just “The Graveyard"), as they are in many places we don’t often hear about. Gravedigging is good therapy, just like kneading bread is good therapy, and it ought to be done by hand, with love. The men who can’t remember the words one is supposed to say at such times show up to lift rocks and buckets of dirt, give advice, and just make sure things are done right. That’s how they pay their respects. They never fail to show up, because they know someone has to do it, just like someone  has to cook the dinner. To outsiders, this may look like sexism. Here, it looks to most like doing the right thing, the needful thing.

•••••

Today I read about what was needful on the occasion of Dakini Dancer’s passing. There will be food to cook, pets to be adopted, possessions to be apportioned, arrangements to be made. People who loved her, and people who care for someone who loved her, will do those things because they need to be done. It’s been ever thus.

Josie dances away into eternity. Hope’s memories are restored. The rest of us take our turns at baking cakes, washing dishes, digging graves, and sitting on the porch spitting cherries pits, just being there, because that’s how we care for one another.  

 Rest in peace and joy, Dakini Dancer.