Peeling Potatoes and Making Memories

by Donna Poole

I made scalloped potatoes yesterday.

 In my memories, Lonnie was here with me, peeling, slicing, and making me laugh. Lonnie is quiet and sweet, but she can also send a roomful of people into hysterical laughter with her unexpected comments and her puns.

Lonnie is sister to my husband John, his only sibling, and I’ve known her almost as long as I can remember. She’s part of many happy memories. Lonnie and I saw each other every Christmas season from the time we were young married couples until we were senior citizens. Until Mom Poole died at age ninety, our families celebrated every Christmas together. Sometimes we got together other times during the year too.

The last time Lonnie and I made scalloped potatoes we were in Georgia visiting Mom and Dad Poole. By then Alzheimer’s was beginning to steal many things from Mom, including her ability to cook. So, when the family gathered, Lonnie and I made scalloped potatoes. Mom and Dad loved them.

As we peeled and sliced potatoes and onions Lonnie and I bonded all over again, and the months we’d been apart evaporated. Tears from peeling onions rolled down our cheeks, but we laughed often too. You can’t be with Lonnie without laughing.

I remember once Dad Poole, who was almost always cheerful despite his frail health, was pulling his long oxygen hose behind him. It was getting tangled, and we heard from Dad something we seldom heard—a sigh.

Lonnie adored both her parents and spoke to them always with only the utmost respect. But when she sighed, she looked at him.

“Well, up your nose with a rubber hose!” Lonnie said.

And then Dad laughed. The living room full of relatives echoed with laugher so loud I don’t know how the walls didn’t bend outward.

It’s a gift, being able to make people laugh in hard times. Lonnie has it, and so does John. They come by it naturally; their dad was the king of laughter. At his dialysis unit the nurses nicknamed him “Mr. Sunshine.”

Lonnie lives now in a beautiful assisted living home. I don’t know if they call her Mrs. Sunshine there or not, but they should. The home puts funny videos online, and Lonnie is often the star. In that home Lonnie is doing what she’s done everywhere, living her best life, and helping others live theirs.

I missed Lonnie as I peeled potatoes yesterday. The recipe called for six potatoes, but I peeled thirteen, so we’d be sure to have enough. I almost forgot I was fixing scalloped potatoes for only four, not for the crowd who’d gathered in Georgia to visit with Mom and Dad.

There’s a comforting rhythm to peeling potatoes that makes it easy to remember happy times. One of the wonderful things about getting older is how full your memory book is by then. It’s even larger than my old favorite Betty Crocker Cookbook. Like my cookbook, my memory book has some favorite pages tattered from use.

I never remain with memories that hurt; why would I do that? That would be like staring at a picture of a recipe in my cookbook that makes me gag; no thank you! I rifle through the pages of my memory book and settle on one that makes me feel contented, or loved. I linger on ones that bring a smile or a laugh.

I love remembering when Mom and Dad Poole were still alive, Dad with his oxygen–the rubber hose up his nose, and we all gathered at their home: Lonnie and Truman, their children and grandchildren, John and I, our kids, and our granddaughter, the only one of our fourteen grandchildren who’d been born yet. We pulled the heavy roaster pan of scalloped potatoes out of the oven and the rich aroma filled the small house.

As we ate someone said, “Do you remember when…”, and then we were laughing our way down memory lane. It was a beautiful backroad to take.  

As yesterday’s scalloped potatoes browned in the oven, I thanked God for memories. What a precious gift they are; but we aren’t meant to live on them alone. As long as we’re alive we should keep making new memories.

I made a new memory yesterday. When Lonnie and I used to make scalloped potatoes, Kimmee often whispered to me, “Mom, don’t put in any onions, okay?”

I explained I had to put in the onions; that’s how we’d always done it, and that’s how people liked it.

“I don’t like the onions, and Danny doesn’t either,” she whispered. Danny is her brother, and no, he wasn’t crazy about the onions, and I have a hunch some other people weren’t either, me included, but tradition is tradition, right?

But yesterday I didn’t peel or chop a single onion. I used onion powder instead. Kimmee approved, and I think Danny would have too, if he’d been here to eat them. Come to think of it, I don’t suppose any of the family would have complained about the absence of onions if we could only gather one more time to eat, to talk, and to laugh.

And we will someday, in heaven.

But until then, we have old memories to enjoy and new ones to make. I want to be sure to do just that.

After my sister, Eve, left for heaven, my brother-in-law Bruce showed us pictures of good times they’d had together. He looked at us with tears in his eyes.

“Make memories,” he said, “because someday memories will be all you’ll have.”

I cherish my memories of yesterday. I loved thinking about happy family times while I peeled those potatoes, and you know what? I found out a tear or two can roll down your cheeks when you’re making scalloped potatoes even when you don’t peel a single onion.

The End

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These blogs are now available in book form on Amazon:

Backroad Ramblings Volume One: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter

Backroad Ramblings Volume Two: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter

All of my books are available at amazon.com/author/donnapoole