Zibby Mag

By Natalie Silverstein

Until my mother passed a few weeks ago, I had spoken to her on the telephone nearly every day of my adult life. Our conversations covered some combination of the following: weather, gossip about who had died, commentary about what she had eaten or was planning to eat, the whereabouts of my children, travel (mine), which led back to weather, and the fact that I should not travel because of bad weather.

Those chats, always brief and superficial, were marked by pathological normalcy, a clinging to the illusion that all was well because my kids got home from school in one piece, she still had plenty of orange juice, and it wasn’t going to rain. I began nearly every one of these phone calls with a Ukrainian expression that translates to “What are you doing?” A creature of habit and an elderly homebody, she was always doing pretty much the same thing.

As I walk to the supermarket a block from my home, I’m struck by a memory of rushing to this market one morning before taking her to the doctor. I carried an insulated bag I would fill with her favorite goodies — a peace offering, a conversation starter, a treat. I miss my mother when I turn the corner and see the racks of flowers.

I always brought my Mom a bouquet of fresh flowers, preferably one with a sunflower or Gerbera daisies, a few roses, and some greenery. I didn’t visit every week or even every other week, but when I did, I brought the groceries and the flowers to cheer her. She loved having fresh flowers on her table.

Entering the supermarket, I make a sharp left toward the produce section where I would buy strawberries for her. I then head to the back of the store to the prepared foods display. Never tuna or whitefish, maybe just a little potato salad or a bit of coleslaw. Always the smallest containers because she hated wasting food and the big containers were simply too much. She was 90 years old and her appetite shrunk as her years stretched.

Around the corner, I find the slim packages of smoked salmon — a delicacy, a throwback to her time living on the Lower East Side of Manhattan after emigrating to the United States. The melting pot of cultures and flavors cultivated her culinary preferences: smoked fish, baklava, kielbasa, potato pancakes. Across the aisle, a rotisserie chicken warms under a hood, something she might nibble on for a few days.

I scan the freshly baked goods nearby, deciding what she might like. Depending on the time of year, perhaps the raspberry hamentashen or maybe the rugelach. The black and white cookies are always good, or maybe just plain chocolate chip.

If I head over to the packaged food aisles, I’ll find her beloved Oreos. They were the first American cookie she ever tasted, given to her by an American soldier on the eleven-day voyage across the Atlantic from Germany in 1949. There were always a few stale Oreos inside her cookie jar, the one I had made as a Mother’s Day gift long ago with photos of her grandchildren emblazoned on the side.

Next, I move to the most important section of all: the bins of fragrant coffee beans, grinders lined up on the side. There were few things my mother needed or wanted more than coffee. She drank water, seltzer, and sometimes juice, but coffee was king. The making of it, the efficiency of the pot, the number of cups she should make, the creamer she preferred, the discussion about whether a second pot was warranted — these were some of the biggest concerns of her day.

Coffee was a grounding, basic pleasure — her one and only drug. It was the way she both started the day (without exception) and ended a meal. Sometimes it wasn’t about the coffee at all, but rather the comforting routine of putting the filter in the machine, pouring the water, and turning it on.

If I head over to the packaged food aisles, I’ll find her beloved Oreos. They were the first American cookie she ever tasted, given to her by an American soldier on the eleven-day voyage across the Atlantic from Germany in 1949.

On this day, a month after she left this world and six weeks after our last real conversation, it feels like I will never make my way around this supermarket, or any supermarket, without thinking of my mother. This seems both poetically symbolic and sad. She had survived starvation during a war and worked physically demanding jobs to help put food on the table. She was attached to certain dishes and was a little bit picky. Much of her life revolved around food: getting it, preparing it, storing it, not wasting it. It’s only right that the supermarket would be a place where her memory would come to me, where I would feel her.

We regularly and almost exclusively spoke of food and weather because this was the stuff of her life, and it was our only common ground. It wasn’t high-minded, it didn’t reveal anything particularly meaningful, it didn’t create a deeper connection. In fact, it often felt superficial, like we were two acquaintances chatting on the street. But it was all we had sometimes: me and my mom, the woman who raised me as best she could, exchanging a few pleasantries.

As I move into this first holiday season without her, catching myself as I lift the phone and begin to dial her number, I’ll quietly stroll through the market and take in the sight of flowers on the corner, the wafting smell of coffee, the taste of a fresh Oreo, and I’ll miss her.

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Natalie Silverstein, MPH, is an author, speaker, consultant, and passionate advocate for family and youth service. Her first book, Simple Acts: The Busy Family’s Guide to Giving Back, was published in 2019. Her second book, Simple Acts: The Busy Teen’s Guide to Making a Difference will be published in early 2022. Natalie is the New York coordinator of Doing Good Together, a Minneapolis-based nonprofit. In this role, she curates a free monthly e-mail listing of family-friendly service opportunities distributed to thousands of subscribers. Her personal and parenting essays have appeared on a variety of blogs including Grown and Flown, Red Tricycle, Motherwell, and Mommypoppins. She is a frequent public speaker and podcast guest. Natalie holds a master’s degree in public health from Yale. She lives in New York City with her husband and three children.

This essay is part of our Moms Don’t Have Time to Grieve column.