To Paddy

Suzie loved food. She loved everything about it; looking at it, eating it, and most importantly cooking it. Her favourite thing in the world was to feed people.

Just before the second anniversary of her brothers passing, she lay in bed, playing on her iPad, and got a notion to make the day memorable. After all, he did love when she cooked for him.

Three weeks before the day, Suzie texted everyone and anyone who was at all related to her. She requested that sons, daughters, wives, husbands, grandchildren, greatgrandchildren and partners to all of the above attend. She got the head count up to forty-three, a number she was surprised about, yet delighted at the same time. There was no way she was going to tell her mother how many were coming as the ninety-year-old woman didn’t want a fuss and instructed she asked immediate family only. How was Suzie to help with how many took her up on her offer. Technically, as there were twelve in the family, it was only the immediate family coming, just with some children added to the mix.

Suzie sat down, her copious amounts of cookery books laid out on the table, wondering what delights she could present the brood with. She was firm that she, and only she, was to cook the food. The previous year her sister cooked the curry and it wasn’t up to Suzie’s standards. How could she put her name as the hostess if there was a curry that she didn’t approve of?

As so many of the family who wanted to contribute, she instructed one of them to do a cheese board, another make scones and another to do the garlic bread…real garlic bread and not the frozen kind. Her brother Shane piped up and boasted that he made a mean garlic bread taking away her sister Sharons job, so Sharon was left with the cheese board. She joked that she was just going to buy a packet of easy singles and a box of the laughing cow triangles…Suzie wasn’t sure if she was joking or not, so she extended her index finger and threatened that if it wasn’t up to scratch, it wasn’t being served. That shut Sharon up immediately.

People could say that Suzie was a very down to earth, easy-going character…but not when it came down to food. After deciding on making a curry, lasagne, veggie pasta bake, beef stroganoff, and veggie curry, Suzie felt a jolt of excitement flash through her body. She was excited. She would be able to cook for the masses and she felt good about it.

Two days before the gathering, Suzie made the arduous journey from Dublin to Waterford. She met her sister, Fiona, in the cash and carry in Waterford city so she could buy the meat and hopefully make a saving on it…that was her excuse anyway. Really, she just wanted to have a nosy around a warehouse that dealt mostly with food and drink in bulk. It took two and a half hours of going from the meat section to the lines upon lines of food before she was finally satisfied that she had enough to fulfil the gargantuan task of cooking for the masses, the same amount of time it had taken her to get there from Dublin.

Suzie couldn’t sleep that night. She was like a kid at Christmas…looking forward to opening her presents. Once the clock turned eight, she heard her mother stir and could justify getting up to start cooking. Her poor mother, Bridie, kept saying to her, ‘will you come and sit down now?’ and ‘why are you still cooking?’ The poor woman had dementia and couldn’t comprehend that there were people coming the next day to celebrate the life of her beloved son.

Suzie, afraid to upset Bridie who was wandering around the house like a lost soul, made her sit down and cut up the onions. Two minutes in and Bridie was complaining that she hated chopping onions and went into the living room falling asleep during a rerun of Judge Judy.

Having every recipe written down beside her, which she didn’t need because she knew them off by heart, Suzie continued to cook. She cooked, and cooked, and cooked all day, pausing only to make sure her mother ate her lunch. She cooked straight until dinner time, Bridie ‘oohing’ and ‘aahhing’ over the delights that filled the kitchen. She was instructed not to touch the food, that it was for tomorrow, but the poor thing kept asking what was under all of the tin foil that covered her once empty kitchen table.

As the gazebo was assembled before Suzie’s arrival, the hope being that it would still be erect for the day it was needed, Suzie was certain that she would come down and find bits of it here and there from the wind that blew like a hurricane during the night. To her relief, it was upright but needed to be adjusted slightly, so she rang Fiona who came over with her drill and some odd bits of wood to affix to the feeble joints. The last thing they wanted was for it to collapse during such an important day.

The guests were due to arrive at two, so naturally they started to trickle in from about half twelve asking if they could do anything. Being honest, Suzie was glad of the help. She loved cooking but was tired after the marathon from the day before. She ordered her siblings around, feeling like Gordon Ramsey, and by the time the whole clan had assembled, the food was ready.

Fiona did a lovely job in the garden. She put out plastic foldable tables and carried out all of the heavy chairs, scattering them around the tables. Shane, who’s garlic bread looked amazing, brought his dining room chairs down also as he only lived six doors up from Bridie. Bridie herself couldn’t understand why there were so many people in her house. Fiona looked her up and down just as the extended family were arriving and noticed that she was wearing clothes that were dirty, coaxing her upstairs to put on fresh ones.

Suzie had three bottles of Bridies ‘special wine’ (wine that had been watered down) in the press. She found it hard, but managed to keep her sober until one of the cousins asked her, in her new attire, if she wanted a drink. All of the siblings, and most of the cousins, knew that Bridie had ‘special wine’ and produced it just in time, as he was about to open a bottle that somehow manifested from the cupboard.

Bridie was shocked when cousin Brian showed up with his wife and their five lunatic children who she hadn’t had the pleasure of meeting before. If they weren’t kicking or screaming, they were jumping up and down on the couch, their parents saying nothing. I suppose when you have five kids between the ages of five and eleven, you get used to the commotion and just let them at it. They could have tried to intervein however, but were probably just glad to get the opportunity to converse with other adults.

Fiona, who was aware the kids were coming, had made some games for them, and as if they weren’t hyper enough, had the sweet cart assembled and stocked to the gills with jellies. She was very good with the kids, and the games had them occupied for over an hour. Their parents were very impressed with the distraction and the fact that they hadn’t torn the sweet cart apart.

As per usual, Suzie had made far too much food. She kept trying to encourage people to have second and third helpings…something they were doing anyway as they were trying to sample all of the dishes.

The day as a whole was a success. When the newest member of the family, eleven-week-old Sophie, finally woke from her nap, Suzie abandoned trying to feed people and sat with her giving her her bottle. Suzie loved babies. Sophie, who was especially special as her father, Suzie’s nephew, lived with her for several years as he attended college in Dublin. She had a special bond with him and every time she made it down, even though he lived in Wexford, he made the extra effort to come home to spend time with her.

Unbeknownst to herself, as Suzie was feeding the beautiful Sophie, the rest of the family were hard at work cleaning up after everyone. They pushed leftovers onto each and every guest and froze the rest. Delighted to have dinner for the next day sorted, the crowds diminished and Bridie had retired to the sitting room, dead to the world from such a long day.

As the chill of summer descended upon the garden, everyone who was left moved inside. Some went in to keep the sleeping Bridie company, others made tea in the kitchen. Suzie surprised that the dishes were done, spent her time talking gobbledygook at the beautiful Sophie, swatting Sharon away every time she tried to take her off of her.

They had made a toast to dearly departed Paddy when everyone was eating earlier in the day, but as they sat there drinking tea, they started telling stories of the man who had left a hole in the family when he suddenly passed that day two years ago. Suzie was fully aware that Bridie had no concept of the gravity of the gathering, but she knew she missed her son terribly. She looked up at the ceiling and held up her mug, closed her eyes, and said ‘to Paddy!’