When I blink back the fog, I remember one figure in particular. I had no grandmas and grandpas, but I did have flocks of great aunts and uncles. My youngest great-aunt wasn’t really much of a cook. I think she was just too receptive for that, too receptive but too impatient to have to go through the process of a new recipe herself. I think she was more of a savorer and a crier, a sharer and a laugher, a cheer-upper and a keen observer. Whatever the occasion was, no matter how big or small, or how extravagant or quaint, or filled with dazzling happiness, or clouded over with somber fears of the future. This young lady trapped in the body of an old wise woman seemed to just always be eager to crank open the upteenth grapefruit colored champagne bottle for us to sip on or guzzle down, depending on how much we were filled with despair when we had to ask her for advice. Her flowing words always seemed to sprint and stumble on the thin thread separating the land of simple reminders of helpful truth and the thorny marshlands of biting, almost insulting words that would leave wounds but prevent you from retorting back, because you knew she was right. 

“What a fitting word,” I murmur every time I think about her. And that was what it was. Everything about her was just. Right. Not that she didn’t make occasional mistakes herself. But the air of confidence she had, and her impenetrable aura that seemed to know everything about you, more than you knew yourself. Every word, every simple lift of a finger. Everything was deliberate and a conscious action. And that’s how I tried to live life after hourglass after hourglass overturned when time whisked by until I was a grown man stuck in the shell of a little boy who’d still think of his great-aunt in wonder. 

The grapefruit pink champagne. The fuel of the woman, the next- 

One ruby red grapefruit provides about a half a cup of fresh grapefruit juice. Just mix that plus 1 tablespoon of... into a measuring cup and drizzle into the bottom of four champagne flutes. There’s nothing dazzling about this, it is nothing but painstaking. wonder of the world. The elixir of life, for through her, generations after were brought to life with the character she played in our simple fable we call life. I’ve never been able to find- Now just trickle in some of the vermillion syrup. When will you understand there’s nothing truly deep within sparkling champagne that was quite the same colors as hers had been. Years flew by and grew stale into decades, yet I couldn’t find the hue that was quite the exact ratio of light tangerines to apricots to salmon. 

When I sigh in disappointment and lower the volume of my headphones to try to savor the fading memories of her, my mind runs to my favorite memory with her when I was but a child. Like a broken hunter fleeing from a family of lions by seeking shelter within a comforting cave, my mind on autopilot reaches for the memory of little me smiling at a steaming bowl of broth. To this day, the type of broth it was was unknown- and sometimes I go into fits when I think about how I’ve never been able to taste quite the same broth that she had brewed for me. It was more than a comfort food; if grapefruit champagne was her fuel, this broth was mine. It was the most common dish she would make for me and my twin brother when we would run up the hills to spend nights at her earthy cottage deep in the countryside. This was truly heaven with the songbirds chirping as the peonies bloomed contently all around us. Heaven with her, Alpha and Omega.  This broth would always waft over to us at any time of the day, for it was the deep fragrance that would greet us before we would see any steaming pot on the stove. Her calming voice would beckon us through the garden door, luring us inside after a long day of skipping through the grassy hills, chasing squirrels and enjoying the slight breeze that would constantly tickle us. We would shout in delight and race each other inside the secret garden to find crystal clear dishes filled to the brim with the golden broth, honey colored, with a single basil leaf she would float in as garnish. To this very moment, it’s the first thing I think of when I go through distress.