kitchen Angst!

This really is one of my specialties! not only because I am a good southern boy, but more so that I am a nurturer/caregiver by nature! I need to take care of people, and I am good at it. This first story may leave you scratching your head a bit, I hope it does as a matter of fact! I want you to understand how a nurturer/caregiver thinks… and how that may differ from a provider/protector! These two are not the same!!

Look at the words:

provide and protect

Here you are taking care of someones monetary and physical needs!

nurture and care

Here you are providing more emotional help, with some physical thrown in!

I tend to look after the mind and soul first, not the body. I allow the doctors do that, they know it better than me!

I learned I had this gift back in the Reagan years, when AIDS was still the gay cancer and very little was being done to stop this plague! I was living in Los Angeles, working at Spago and had no money in my pocket to speak of, but I met a guy “who I liked” and was active in the gay and lesbian services center, He was involved in a program where people would go to hospitals and visit patients with AIDS and just talk. It was based on Big Brother/ Big Sister, called the buddy system. I jumped on! I would go to the hospital before work (it was on my bus route) and stop in and chat with guys that were dieing… for an hour or so, It was horrifying! But I was hooked! I couldn’t stop, I knew, after hearing my first story of how their family had abandoned them as well as their friends once they got sick, or came out… I had to be there for them! I did this for some time and It weighed heavy on me! I was depressed, angry, and bitter for oblivious reasons! I watched 50 beautiful lives come to an end that year. The last was the worst and the best at the same time! His family had disowned him, His lover HIV- was still kind of in the pitcher, and He was fading fast!

A Z T was the drug of the hour, but we all knew it was a death sentence! So when anyone was taken off A Z T you knew you had a limited time to say goodbye! This is where my blog actually begins!

We brought him home after they could do nothing else for him at the hospital. We were trained on how to change the tubes coming out of his body! feed him! change his diaper! and told… Enjoy! Well We did just that! His nurses that were scheduled every day to be there at 8am were late almost every day, and treated him so poorly that We got fed up! one night I was there, He had no idea who I was at this point, but I asked him what He wanted to eat? He said.. in a proud voice…I want fresh crab! OK I said Fresh crab it is! I left the house and ran to the market and bought 4 live blue crabs! By the time I had returned, He had forgotten He had even requested the crab, but it didn’t matter I was fixing it! He loved the meal that night! He was happy when He tasted the crab even though He didn’t know why.

This is true comfort food! It may not fall into the common definition, but this is comfort food at It’s best!

I want to continue this story tomorrow, Like I said I have 50 plus of these stories, but I feel this one is the most important and telling! I will “by nature” fall back on my experience, but I don’t want to deal with only negative issues!

James