I want to buy you bagels
In January, 2007, Mom and I went on our first annual trip to Aruba. And in July, 2021, we returned from our 14th trip together. We only skipped 2020. I always came to your house the night before the trip. Traveling to the airport together just made more sense than meeting at the airport. Texting wasn’t huge back in 2007, so we would have to call each other to coordinate upon arrival. I am sure we could have just planned to meet at the gate. And, we didn’t have to pay for 2 car services. Uber wasn’t quite a thing, so Mom would have paid for an expensive car service and I would have taken a pricey Yellow Cab or spent 90 minutes commuting on the train from my Avenue C apartment.
If you recall, Dad, we usually met up at Metro North to head to the house together. I would bring you a dozen bagels for the week we were away. I looked back on some old emails and over time, it became obvious that you would eat any bagel I brought home. Everything bagel was your favorite, but you were open to Sesame, Poppy, and Plain. You would freeze some and pack the rest as your breakfast for work. In retrospect, it seems odd that I didn’t just bring them to your office since you ate them at work. But I am not sure a dozen bagels would last in an office setting.
It was kind of challenging to carry the bagels sometimes because I also had all of my luggage. And I always wanted to get the bagels from great places, like Murray’s Bagels, not just some average bagel spot. I would go to the Village with my suitcase, purchase the bagels, and then lug the suitcase and the bagels to my office. At the end of the work day, we met at the train station, and you helped me carry my suitcase from there.
To be clear, you were perfectly capable of obtaining breakfast on your own when we were away. You had cereal in your office, which Mom and I found a bag of when we were cleaning it out in December. Those Cheerios were so stale and hard that we used it as a doorstop to bypass security so we could get to the bathroom. The bagels were a nice treat though. We were taking a mother-daughter trip and you were not invited. And some of those years, you shouldered most of my costs, so the least I could do was bring you some cream cheese.
Dad, you loved these bagels. Or, at least that is what you told me. In 2017, you said “So, every day I bring a bagel, have half with cream cheese for breakfast and the other half with cheese and/or salami or more cream cheese for lunch. Not a bad diet! Thanks for bringing them.” And in 2018, you wrote: “So, thanks to you, I adopted a weekday bagel diet. One bagel per day, half for breakfast and half for lunch. Lost 5 pounds!”
Sidenote: I too start a lot of sentences with So, and it all makes sense now. Oh, and I am So Very Kerry. So, thanks Dad for that.
Second Sidenote: Should I write a book about how to diet eating only bagels?
In 2019, I opted to meet Mom at the airport for the first time ever. We were leaving on a Saturday, so I wanted to spend Friday night with Sung. I didn’t bring you bagels. And now, I can’t bring you bagels.
One of the most challenging parts of grief is that memories come to you at random times and just cripple you. I had a dream about bagels and that’s what brought this memory back to me. I miss buying you bagels and lugging them around until I got home. I miss getting your emails on your bagel diets. I miss sharing a bottle of Cabernet with you the night before the trip, because you always loved having red wine with me when I am home.
So, I hope you enjoyed the last bagel you ever had. I don’t even know what the last bagel you had was and I can’t even ask you. But I’ll buy an everything bagel with low fat cream cheese soon and try to enjoy it the way you did.
