Turkey Soup
and the small but mighty importance of sharing a meal.
It starts with a great big enamelware soup pot that gets brought up from the basement toward the end of cooking a full turkey dinner. Then in go all the ingredients and it simmers away for hours. Once it’s done, you’ve got something so good, so healing, so home. And you’ve got so much of it that it’s easy necessary to share it with those you love.
I don’t know where my mum got her turkey soup recipe from. I don’t know if she learned it from a book or from her mum before her or even a neighbor or friend. My guess is it’s a little bit of all these things rolled into one final soup recipe. But since I was a little girl, it’s been my favorite meal.
When I was in my 20’s I sat at the kitchen counter and wrote down all the steps while she made it. Since then, I’ve made it myself and there is very little in my life that gives me more pride than the fact that I have been able to master her turkey soup. It’s exactly the same. Comfort in a bowl. Home.
There are countless folks out there who’ve been able to try my mum’s turkey soup since each making of it results in a very large amount. This has also rung true for the folks in my own life since I’ve taken up the mantle. And more beyond that have simply heard about Mum’s Turkey Soup; for as long as I can remember, my answer to the common ice breaker question of “what’s your favorite food” has been, “it’s a toss-up between a turkey dinner and my mum’s turkey soup. I can’t decide between them and you can’t have one without the other.”
It also happened to be one of her favorite meals. When I would make a turkey dinner/soup on my own and show up at her house with a large pyrex container of soup, she’d get so excited. It was always a sure way to please her.
As she declined into Lewy Body Dementia, she stopped cooking. I’d cook meals she loved and have everyone over for them (because we loved them too). Once she was in the nursing home, I didn’t bring her food anymore since she was eating well there. And because it was difficult for her mentally, she didn’t come over for dinner anymore.
My sister and I decided we’d break her out for Thanksgiving last year, and see how it went. This would not only make us all feel better about Thanksgiving as a family, but help us decide what on earth to do about Christmas.
On the Monday before Thanksgiving, she fell and got a concussion. She was to rest and stay in bed since she wasn’t great on her feet. The day before Thanksgiving, I went to the nursing home to check on her to see if she’d be up for leaving the next day as planned. She was a bit more confused but seemed OK. As a matter of fact, in a moment of lucidity she asked to practice the names and connections of all her grandkids so she wouldn’t feel badly about getting them wrong the next day. She seemed OK enough and the nursing team agreed but that we’d all touch base in the morning to see how she was then. The next morning I called and she was all excited and ready to go. We were on! I cooked away knowing Mum was going to be at my house for the first time in almost a year and hoped it would be helpful and not harmful for her mind. There were lots of emotions for everyone. Would it be OK? Would it benefit her? Would she eat? Would she fight going back to the home at the endow the day? Would she rather be there where things felt more familiar now? What. Would. Happen?
A couple hours later, another call came. She had fallen again. A bad fall. She went to the hospital. We found out she had broken her neck and would be in the hospital for some time as they decided what to do with her brittle bones and a memory that wouldn’t keep her in bed. OK.
My sister’s family and my own still had somewhat of a Thanksgiving and my dad even stopped by after he left my mum settled into the hospital. Mum has fallen a lot in her life so we are all pretty used to the routine of a fall and then a few days in the hospital and then whatever comes next. Still, something felt different.
We cleaned up from the meal and the vat of soup was bubbling away. We’d face whatever came next over the next few days as we always did.
When I was able to go to the hospital to see her, I had heard she wasn’t eating. I brought some turkey soup in a mason jar with me in hopes the hospital would let her try it. They were so kind about it and excited to heat it up for her. In pain and unable to move her neck with a wildly uncomfortable neck brace on, she got excited for the soup and was able to sit up while I spoon fed it to her. First the broth which caused her to moan and say, “ohhh that’s good. Hit’s the spot” Then we tried a carrot. Then noodle. Then the turkey itself. She was doing great! Food in her belly! Turkey soup to the rescue again! Is there nothing this turkey soup can’t do?!
…
…
She died a couple of days later.
It turns out, that mason jar of turkey soup was the last real meal she ate. When I realized this, I realized how appropriate it was that one of her last meals was turkey soup. Her turkey soup that I happened to make. And I was so grateful that I was able to give that to her.
It’s been three months since her death. We go on, one day at a time.
I’ve mentioned before that the amount of turkey soup we yield is intense. And without my mum taking her usual share, and with it being a Thanksgiving soup (so everyone in the world also has leftovers to get through), we had a LOT of leftover soup this past year. So I froze it (if you want to do this, be sure to freeze it before adding noodles; the noodles don’t freeze well). We would break out some soup whenever we needed a quick meal and I didn’t have time to cook.
Last week, we unthawed the final bit of soup from Thanksgiving. And as we ate it, I thought of Mum and the mason jar. That mason jar and the bowl I was eating from contained soup from the same batch. She’s gone three months and yet we were still sharing a meal together. The soup, once again, had performed a miracle and it was like Mum was beside me, saying, “oooh that’s good. Hit’s the spot.”
Thanks for the soup, Mum.
-Kerry
