Every single thanksgiving, we make a signature dish that has so much meaning behind it. Nobody actually likes the dish, it's a dish common in Iran that is honestly unappealing, both flavor wise and looks wise. Yet still, we make it every single year.
Why would we want to make a dish that barely gets touched? Spend so much time on it, just for the plate to be full still by the end of the night?
It was my aunt's favorite.
Each year, she would make a small portion, for about 4 people, hoping that one day, someone else would want to indulge in her favorite meal with her. And no one ever did.
Ever.
But that didn't stop her. She spent hours the night before Thanksgiving preparing and creating this, and the morning of, more hours on the finishing touches. No one would ever eat it with her, but we all laughed at how much she loved it.
When she died in 2013, we were all heartbroken. Heartbroken. I didn't even want to move. But Thanksgiving was right around the corner. My grandma spent all the hours my aunt once did on 4 portions of a dish. It sat right in the middle of our table when the night finally came.
None of us even wanted to eat without her there, radiating a smile throughout the kitchen, the reflection of her teeth beaming off of the granite kitchen countertop. But the most amazing thing happened shortly after we all began grabbing food.
My grandma, the main cook, started the Thanksgiving line off, grabbing all of her favorites- the dirty rice, ghormeh sabzi, TahDig, “the works” she called it. But when she came to the Kalle pach (My aunt’s favorite, a sheep head and hoof soup), she didn’t pass by it for once. My aunt always mixed it with her rice, so my grandma put the smallest spoonful imaginable on her plate, and when she sat down, mixed it with a bit of her rice.
We all followed her. One by one, no matter how much we all hated it (and only god knows how much I absolutely despised this dish), we put a spoonful on our plate and took a bite with rice. I remember all the wincing faces and slight gags, but the huge grins taking form after.
She will never know that we did this for her, but every year after, we kept the tradition alive-
We kept my aunt’s legacy alive.
She was the brightest face in the room, every second of everyday, and we all actively try to pursue the life for us she wanted- happy. She always said there is no point of life without happiness, and I didn’t see that being true until after she died. Her words ring in my head each morning I wake up and each night I fall asleep.
Doing something so little, once a year, seems like it hasn’t or couldn’t make any sort of difference. But we all realized that it can, and it will. I look forward to each thanksgiving, where we can all pay our respects to my aunt, even if it means starting my meal off with a bite of the chunkiest, worst smelling food you could ever think about.
We do it all, to keep her memory
Alive.
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