Soy Cheese Loaf and Grief in the Grocery Store

As I looked down at the cookbook for this week’s recipe, I wasn’t even a little excited. I wasn’t excited about whatever Soy Cheese Loaf was.

I mean, how could I be? Turns out, “soy cheese” was just a block of mashed tofu. The recipe also called for two hard-boiled eggs, and since I only approve of eggs in baked goods, those were NOT going to make it into this recipe.

As usual, the ingredients were weird: mashed tofu, soy sauce, raw eggs, sage, breadcrumbs, mayonnaise, and an onion. Mix everything together and bake it in a loaf pan for an hour. Or fry it into patties. Once again, no oven temperature. Apparently, Mrs. Clarence (Charlotte) Stafford, who is credited with this recipe, assumed I would know what to do. She had more confidence in me than I had in her loaf.

I checked the ingredients, so I would have everything I needed to make it on Sunday or Monday, and headed to the grocery store. The good thing was that my brother and his family would be here, so I could make it with them. These experiments are more enjoyable with company. At least someone else can look at the ingredients and say, “Really?” But I was grumpy. Not because of my brother. Because of my brother-in-law.

Sitting in the grocery store parking lot, I was talking to my dad when the conversation shifted to Christmas. My dad wasn’t sure what was happening because my brother-in-law had started dating and was going to introduce his girlfriend to his family. He said it so nonchalantly that I breezed right past it and headed into the store. But somewhere between the frozen fruit and the tofu, the information caught up with me.

Tears stung my eyes. Then I was crying. Not a lot, but enough, and as I was pushing a grocery cart through the aisles, I tried to remember what I had come for. People stared, but no one stopped to ask if I was okay. I wasn’t okay. But I was glad no one asked. I didn’t want to explain my sister’s death and my brother-in-law dating to a stranger while standing next to the tofu. I could barely explain to myself why this news had hit me so hard. I left with half of what I needed and a cart full of comfort food. As I loaded the groceries into my car, I realized I hadn’t even bought the tofu.

I knew I wasn’t going back. Soy Cheese Loaf could wait.

When I got home and told my husband, my eyes started to well up again.

“I don’t know how to help,” he said.

There wasn’t much for him to do. I needed to work it out in my own head, but I was sad and angry at the same time.

It felt like the final nail in my sister’s coffin. As if this made it official in a way nothing else had: Amanda was gone, and life was moving on without her. Of course, I already knew she was gone. But knowing something and bearing every new reminder of it are not the same. I never expected my brother-in-law not to date again. What I didn’t expect was for it to be so soon. I also hadn’t expected to hear about a girlfriend in the middle of an ordinary Christmas conversation. The holidays were already going hard; Thanksgiving Day was the one-year anniversary, and Christmas would have an empty place in it, too.

There is no love lost between my brother-in-law and me. It has been that way for years. My real concern is my niece and nephews. I check on them, and they often tell me they are fine. At some point, I have to take them at their word. I don’t want to decide what they feel or make them responsible for reassuring me.

But I worry.

Is this new person kind? Is she a good person? Is she a better person than my brother-in-law? And if she is, why is she with him?

Not my most generous thought. But it was there. I have never been in his shoes. I don’t know what it is like to lose a spouse. I know what it is like to lose a sister. Those losses aren’t interchangeable, but both leave people trying to figure out a life they didn’t choose.

I do wonder whether some of my readers might think I’m a sad person. That I cry a lot. That every trip to the grocery store ends with tears and a cart full of comfort food. It doesn’t. I’m generally a happy person. I laugh. I enjoy my family. I look forward to things. I willingly make questionable recipes from old cookbooks, which probably says something about me, although I’m not sure what. But sometimes grief comes out of left field, busts down the door, and reminds me that no matter how much time has passed, the person I love is still gone. Whatever grief we struggle with, ultimately, grief is weird.

A wise person reminded me that this wasn’t about Amanda anymore. Her story had ended. My feelings mattered, and I could feel all the anger I needed, but I already knew the person my brother-in-law was. That was hard to hear. I was grieving my sister, but some of the anger belonged to a relationship that had been difficult long before we lost her.

I can miss Amanda without making every decision he makes another measure of how much she mattered. She mattered. That hasn’t changed.

I feel the same way about my brother-in-law as I always have. That isn’t going to change.

In the end, as usual, the recipe wasn’t great; everyone was brave and tried it, but unlike most of these recipes, we didn’t just drop it right in the trash. My brother and husband thought it was good enough to save and maybe turn into sandwiches. We will see if that actually happens.