Wednesday, February 24, 2010

No comfort from the food of choice

Anyone who knew me in my teenage years would know that I was truly addicted to Chef Boyardee Ravioli. That stuff was like crack to me. I would eat a can every other day or even 5 days out of 7.

It was so bad, that when I got married the groomsmen gave Tina a case of the stuff so she wouldn't have to cook for the first couple weeks of our marriage.

When I started traveling a lot for work, I would eat a can on the weekend while Tina was at work. It was indeed my comfort food.

But, when Amanda was born in March of 1998 she was kept in the hospital for 6 weeks. We spent as many hours as possible at the hospital, but we eventually had to go home. It was about the 4th week when I was at home in the mid afternoon after being relieved by Tina. I came home, to any empty house, a closed nursery door, and a heart that was breaking. I popped a can, heated it up on the stove, put it in a bowl. Something I had done thousand times before, too many times really. The first bite didn't help nor the second. I scraped the rest in the sink and washed it away and haven't had any Chef Boyardee product since. Early April will be twelve years.

1 comment:

Azaera said...

I remember those days in the NICU all too well. The empty crib, the pumping milk every two hours, the endless round the clock trips to the hospital carrying my precious lunch box of milk. The tears, the frustration. I don't blame you for not eating chef boyardee again. Thank you for sharing such a touching story.