This has been a hard, hard weekend but a blessed one, too, as our family came together for a visitation and funeral service honoring Daddy's brother, my Uncle Jimmy. I couldn't resist sharing one of my favorite family pictures—Uncle Jimmy and his wife of over 50 years, my Aunt Linda, back in the day:)
When we gathered at the church late Friday afternoon, none of us was thinking about food. Most of us were surprised when the pastor's wife called us back to the fellowship hall for supper. And I honestly can't explain why that particular meal meant so much to me. But there was something about coming together as a family, offering thanks, and sharing food that was both prepared and served to us with loving hands—it just telegraphed, "We'll help you get through this."
If you're from the South, you could probably guess the menu: fried chicken, roast beef, baked ham, potato casserole, macaroni and cheese, green beans, potato salad . . . There's a reason why they call it comfort food. Those familiar dishes take you back home, where you can believe everything's going to be all right. And that brief time around the table together fortifies you—not just physically, but spiritually and emotionally—for what's coming. One of my dear Southern Living friends, Susan, used to say, "Food is how Southern people love on each other."
Sometimes you don't know how empty you feel until someone feeds you. When other families are grieving, it's easy to think,"What could I possibly do that would help them get over such a great loss?" Maybe we can't help them get over it, but we can help them get through it—sometimes with small kindnesses that seem like nothing to us at the time but might mean the world to them.
Thank you, Pelham Church of God, for showing so much love to our family. I'm so proud of my cousins, who planned the perfect service for their dad, and of sweet Fraser Lee for honoring his grandfather so beautifully. I could imagine Uncle Jimmy looking down on us with that mischievous grin of his and saying, "Man, I musta been somethin'!" You sure were—and always will be.