A Bowl of Soup

My new neighbor likes to cook. I do not. She also likes me. That combination makes me the frequent recipient of Nancy’s culinary gifts delivered in decorated bowls and colorful baskets.

The other day she appeared at my door with two hot-out-of-the-oven herbed biscuits on a plate painted with roses, and a large container of white bean and ham soup. After trading a kiss on her cheek for the offerings, I picked a corner off the biscuit. My tastebuds erupted in a joyful celebration of the warm, crunchy-on-the-outside, soft-on-the-inside bite of heavenly texture and flavors.

It’s not a long walk from my street door to my house door and that fresh biscuit did not cross the threshold. I devoured rather than savored the treat. It was divine.

The soup was another story. In fact, that simple ham and bean soup contained a story. A friendship. A lifetime.

In November of 1979, a few months after I turned 30 and got divorced, I changed jobs. In between the old and new positions, I took a vacation to Jamaica where I met two men traveling together. They were friends not partners. We were loaded onto the same minibus at Montego Bay airport an hour’s ride to Negril, where we were staying in separate hotels.

Excitement for everything happening in my life overflowed my normal tendency to avoid conversational encounters when traveling, but one of the two was a talker and we began to unearth our common denominators. It did not take long before we discovered many.

They each lived less than a mile from my rented apartment in Chicago. Martin, the tall, dark, silent, handsome, almost surly one was an architect. Jim, the smaller, stunningly handsome man was a remodeler. They both owned buildings in my neighborhood. The architect was working on drawings to remodel a four-lane bowling alley into his home. I was fascinated. They invited me into their adventure.

I spent that week in Jamaica with them. We drank, smoked, and even explored Miss Brown’s Mushroom Tea shop, per my travel agent. We fell in friendship and took that vibe back home to Chicago.

For forty years the three of us were family, a sister and her brothers. We had our share of conflicts, but we always resolved them. In 1985 I saved enough money to buy an attractive four-unit building in disrepair in a nearby neighborhood that was beginning to be discovered by artists and musicians who were renovating the many now-vacant small factories that dotted that section of the city. My “brothers” mentored me, gave me design ideas, and referrals to contractors. I was an enthusiastic student. We grew into a tight-knit family.

A few years later I bought a little house on a street of worker cottages and the three of us joined forces to do a gut remodel. Martin drew the plans and Jim was my contractor. They fought. I negotiated settlements. We felt the pride of a finished product that was my perfect home. We celebrated.

Not long after that each of them bought houses nearby and remodeled them. I could walk to either and often did, engaging in what had become a dinnertime ritual.

I spent hours sitting at Martin’s kitchen table while listening to him talk about music or art or his latest plan for another remodel as he cooked dinner. One of my favorite meals was his white bean and ham soup. He would pour wine and slice warm bread that we slathered in butter as the pot simmered and he told stories.

When I lifted the lid on Nancy’s bean soup I was transported by the sight and smell of it back to Martin’s grand kitchen, to my vibrant youth, to a relationship that changed my whole life. More than a momentary memory flashed across my mind. This was an opportunity to return to some of the best times in my life, to sit with joy.

I laid a special occasion embroidered placemat on the table, poured a glass of wine, filled a blue bowl with soup, and sat down to savor years and years and years of memories. I nibbled on the second biscuit, poured more wine, and refilled the bowl leaning into the fragrance of the soup.

Martin died in 2020 during his winter stay in Arizona after only a one-month illness. It was Covid time, and he could have no visitors in the hospital, not even his 99-year-old mother. I mourned from far away and alone.

I did not slurp or swallow that soup. I sipped it spoon by spoon, letting the experiences we had shared float around me like music, savoring all of it together. Rather than feeling sad that Martin is out of my sight, I felt his arms around me, his voice in my ears, and his many gifts woven into who I have become.

You never know what you might find in a bowl of soup, or a new neighbor – more than just what meets the eyes.