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Food is Love


I was blasting Alanis Morissette on the way to pick up my sister Jessie at the airport. My grandma had just died and the funeral was tomorrow. Jessie lived in Denver,I was still stuck in Pennsylvania.
The Harrisburg Airport was a tiny little airport located in Middletown Pa near my grandmother’s house. We were going to stay at my aunt’s house; she lived a mile from my grandmother. We could have stayed at my place but it was the size of a postage stamp. Jessie lived the life of luxury. Unlike my four hundred square foot apartment, Jessie’s house was 4,000 square feet. Her husband and two kids would not make the trip, which was fine with me. The last time I visited I spent the entire weekend chasing my nephews through various stores in Denver.
The grand finale was at Trader Joe’s when Dakota took down the whole display of dark chocolate while screaming that he needed to go poop in French. Darcy stood his ground at the bakery, demanding multiple samples of cinnamon rolls. The clerk tried to convince him that there was only one per customer until Darcy decided to scream at the top of his lungs, “NOOOOOO!” Another clerk from a different department showed up with lollipops for both the kids. This is one of the many reasons I don’t have children.
I never understood why my sister named her son Darcy. Dakota was pushing it but I could understand as my sister would pick things that were trendy. Darcy sounded like a girls name to me but she insisted on it because she said it was French in origin. My sister was going through a French phase. Her husband had promised a trip to Southern France when the kids were old enough to appreciate it. According to my sister that was next year when Dakota would be five and Darcy would be four. Sounds just like the right age to me.
She had even enrolled the kids into a French school in Denver called, what else, but La Petite Academy. They had a preschool and an elementary school that was “French” centered, whatever that means. Leave it to my sister. All I could picture was spoiled little brats sitting around drinking coffee out of white porcelain cups and learning how to make bread or pain, pronounced pan. The only reason I know the French word for bread is because during my last visit, Darcy decided he wanted some bread one morning for breakfast and stood in the kitchen yelling for it in French. My response to him was, “Do you know how to say please in French?” He looked at me and said, “PAIN!!!!!” Then he kicked me in the shin.
Anyway I was looking forward to some one on one time with Jessie even though the circumstances were not the greatest. My grandmother had died of a stroke. She was eighty nine years old and lived with my Uncle or should I say he lived with her. Apparently it is not that uncommon, according to my dad that a grown man lives with his mother. I thought it was outrageous but what did I know? I was just a struggling guidance counselor at the middle school, living in a tiny apartment, trying to make ends meet.
My Uncle Russell lived in a three bedroom house, got his meals cooked, laundry done, drove a brand new car, and spent most of his days at the VFW, but hey I was unreasonable. Uncle Russell helped Grandma stay alive all of these years. I wondered what he would do now.
My cell phone rang; it was Jessie saying that her flight had been delayed and that it would be a few more hours until her flight got in. Great, I thought, now what do I do? It’s not like I’m into shopping to kill time and on my salary I don’t have extra money most of the time anyway. Did I hear crying in the background?

I picked up Jessie after spending some time at an old record store near the airport that had been converted to a CD store. The guy who owned it was an old hippy that kept a large glassed room in the back with old vinyl records. It was actually a really cool store called Old and New. I remember my dad taking us there to kill time sometimes before we went to Grandma’s house. We spent more time at the record store than we did at Grandma’s I never really understood it until I got older.
I pulled into the parking deck marked hourly. I was hoping that her flight would not be delayed any longer as there was nothing to do out this way. I remember thinking this when we would go to visit her. Even though she only lived about thirty minutes from us we always complained how far away she lived. Her house was out in the country a little bit, at least compared to Harrisburg and there weren’t many kids to play with.
I pulled into a spot close to the elevator doors and I locked up my Subaru Outback; this was my second one. I loved my little wagon. Anyway I locked up my car and went into the airport, checked the monitor for flights from Denver, which wasn’t hard as this was a tiny airport and then went downstairs to baggage claim. I figured with security this would be the best spot.