EVERYTHING changes...even the smallest of things

One of my favorite ways to show Alfonso how much I loved him was cooking for him. He loooooved my cooking. And don't tell his abuelita ;-), but he would always say how my cooking matched the superiority of his grandma's....and he loooooooved her cooking! I associate cooking with love. Once we moved into our house up in the high desert, which is large enough to hold a lot of people, every year I would cook a huge holiday meal, in between Thanksgiving and Christmas, for our families (mostly his family....I don't have a lot in comparison to him), and I would spend 2 - 3 days cooking nearly everything from scratch. Appetizers, dinner, dessert....a feast it was. By the time everyone arrived, I was SO exhausted, but so happy to give my love to them this way. I never experienced anything like this. I looked forward to it every year, and so it seemed did everyone else. It filled my heart with so much happiness to see how joyful Alfonso was to be surrounded with his family...his laughter, his smiles, his practical jokes...lol. He loved his family so dearly; they meant the world to him. And I loved being surrounded by all of that non-expectational love & happiness. Of course, with the events of this year, it didn't happen for the first time in 4 years.

This memory was triggered tonight as I was cleaning out my junk folder in my email. Prior to Alfonso's death, I would receive a subscription for a few cooking magazines. Most of the stuff I created was from my own imagination, but I liked trying new recipes and then customizing them to our own taste. In addition to the subscription, I'd also receive a daily newsletter from "Taste of Home", and I would save all of their recipes in a folder, so that I could reference back to them at a later time when we wanted to try something new. But after the incident on October 25th, 2011, there was no purpose left to save any of these. It made my stomach tie in knots even considering to save any of these recipes, so I'd just delete them as quickly as they came in. The idea of cooking made me so sad and distraught. All of the joy and love that I put into it seemed pointless now. For many weeks after his death, I refused to cook anything. It brought me too much grief to even consider making toast. Anything I ate either went into the microwave, I bought it already prepared, or someone else cooked it. It took me over a month after his death to be able to cook an egg. And even then, it was baby steps. The first time, I cooked the egg, but couldn't bear to make it into a sandwich. I know, this sounds so weird....but it was the process of "preparing a meal" that was so difficult for me; it reminded me too much of cooking for Alfonso. To this date, I have still yet to cook an actual meal, though I have cooked many egg & cheese sandwiches since! lol

But tonight, more than 2 months after his death, and nearly 3 months since the incident occurred, I thought that just MAYBE I could begin to save those newsletters from Taste of Home once again, as they continue to fill my junk folder, because I saw some recipes that looked very yummy. As I opened up the newsletter to read it, tears just overwhelmed me. I tried to push past it and face the grief. I even told myself that if I can't read it now, maybe I can just move it into the designated folder and read it another day. But I couldn't even do that. It was too insurmountable for me to get past. Remembering that I'll never cook another meal for him again, or ever hear one of his compliments telling me, "Baby, you've totally out did yourself once again;" it's still all too much to accept. So, another yummy recipe deleted from my email.

Prior to this experience, I would have never imagined some of the day to day things that would become affected. Some of the smallest of things that seem so miniscule to our daily lives suddenly have so much impact.....tasks, chores, items, scents, temperature of the air, et cetera.....just stuff you never found to be significant suddenly can now turn a good day into a grief-filled one. It's horrible. You try so hard to fill your days with happy thoughts and stuff that makes you remember that life is worth living, and in a single second, because of a stupid cooking newsletter that you decide to open up and try to read, your day comes to a crashing halt as all that made you smile that day gets ripped out of you.

"It's so curious:  one can resist tears and 'behave' very well in the hardest hours of grief.  But then someone makes you a friendly sign behind a window, or one notices that a flower that was in bud only yesterday has suddenly blossomed, or a letter slips from a drawer... and everything collapses." -- Colette

Family holiday parties at our house (2009 & 2010) - primos and my mom & I (we're the gringas, in case you can't tell, lol).
In the bottom left corner sits Rayito...the first to fall asleep at our 2009 party. Alfonso devised a plan with several other cousins of his to teach Ray a lesson for falling asleep first....
bring out the shaving cream and startle unsuspecting victim awake! LOL
Ah, and beverages...lots and lots of....beverages! Good times!! :-)