Suicide Stew

Hello cyber world.....I'm back after a non- amazing week of NOT driving my new car. It's a long dreary story involving transportation issues and office furniture. But she is doing well, happily awaiting me in the driveway and chewing on her keychain in anticipation. 

Summertime is always a bittersweet time in this girl's life. It's full of sun and berries and hopes of fishing and beaches. But in my world, it's also the time of the year when my mother decided she'd had enough and took her own life. You may be wondering what this topic has to do with blogging about being child and husband-less and nearly 40? I'm certain that watching my mother's unhappiness as a married woman raising 4 spirited children while married to a loving yet workaholic husband has made me skeptical of choosing to 'settle down'. 

In the late 1960s half of this country was embracing the pill, free love and nontraditional family roles (often in a cloud of sweet smoke). But the half my mother was living in very much supported women marrying in their 20s, at least 2 and often more children by their mid-thirties and accepting that this was the most important role- mother and wife. Now I hope that you haven't gotten the feeling that I am against these roles. In fact, I am very much hoping to still step into both of those shoes (designer wedges or Extra Tuff boots please) before the life of this blog is over. But I think it was very difficult for women such as my mother to feel she had no other place in the world. She walked into the role of a young doctor's wife at 22, which is nearly impossible for me to imagine. By 37 she was birthing her 4th child and had never actualized a self-identity of her own outside of these roles.

The sad part of this story was that she had so many talents....she could sew a prom dress in a several days that was a drop dead imitation as the one I longed for at Jay Jacobs. She could knit fabulous sweaters from patterns in her head. And she could cook- oh could she cook. My fondest memories are of sitting on the open door of the dishwasher (yes, we replaced it several times) watching my mother stir a pot of goodness with a pinch of humor added. 

My mother had some sort of clinical depression. I say this flippantly because I'm not so sure that was really the case. I think she was just a bit bored with her life. Regardless, on many days she would stay in bed and we would hope the Schwann man had been up our remote hill so that we could eat something other than PB and J while mom was in hiding. 

But, her good days almost made up for the dismal ones. She would come home with armfuls of groceries and cook for hours, sometimes days. She had cookbooks brimming with underlined notes, ear tagged pages that were rippled from water and oil spots and little recipe cards shoved in all of the kitchen drawers. The Joy of Cooking, Betty Crocker, and Mastering the Art of French Cooking were among my earliest novels. I can still smell the mixture of salty cheddar cheese, hot bacon and broccolli simmering in her broccolli cheese soup. My mother's meatballs have never been replicable in any of the Italian restaurants I've eaten in- ever. Gooey cookies, spongy cakes, hearty soups, steamy vegetables and fresh fruit pies were some of her specialties.

But one of my all time favorite recipes was her Coffee Stew. I actually thought coffee was a food group until I was a teenager because of the pots my dad would consume and it's special place in her beef stew. The tragic thing is that I have yet to find her specific recipe in any of the cookbooks I took after her death 11 years ago. Now she may have just made it up in her head but I would love to open a crinkled cookbook and find her handwritten notes next to "Aunt Mae's Coffee Stew". 

On a positive note, I think I have basically figured out this stew on my own. At least it's how I remember it tasting the weekend of her hanging. My mother decided to end her life on July 14th, 1998 in a shed next to my family home. She had been depressed for years and suicidal for at least 2. We had found her with cuts on her wrists after one unsuccessful attempt a few months prior. Another time we confiscated a shotgun that she had purchased at the local hardware store. But we had put her in several recovery and psychiatric programs and that spring we thought she was doing better. She was on new medications and was exercising again. Her depression seemed to have lifted and we all were breathing a bit easier. Looking back I now know that after a person has decided they are really going to take their own life, they appear to seem better for the outside world. They have made a tough decision and this takes some weight off of their shoulders. It is something I have now learned to look for in my patients. 

But we didn't see this coming. The last time I saw my mom was on July 5th, 1998. I waved goodbye her after leaving a family 4th of July weekend and didn't look back. I didn't return her call a few days later and this I will never forgive myself for. It took me 3 years to erase that final message from my voicemail. My father found her hanging from a floral bedsheet in the shed early in the morning of July 14th. He had been at the ER on call that night and came home to an empty house. She had sent my then 15 year old brother to a friend's for the night so he wouldn't be the one to find her. In lieu of a note, she left an enormous pot of coffee stew on the kitchen counter, with her wedding rings placed carefully next to it. The fridge was also stocked. At 52 years old, my mother was bowing out of her life of wife and mother but still didn't want her family to have empty stomachs. The next day when I arrived home with my sisters and various family members we heated up the stew. It may seem morose now but it was our final meal from our mom so we couldn't waste it. 

I wish I could have saved my mother from her early death as I was only 26 at the time and dearly miss her. But oddly enough I do understand why she couldn't stay. So I try to cherish what she taught me- how to knit, sew, love, laugh and cook. If you decide to make this stew on a crisp fall day, say a little prayer for Gail and thank her for passing it on.

Gail's Coffee Stew (adapted by her daughter):

Ingredients:

2 T olive oil
1 pound 5 ounces lean stewing steak, cut into cubes

3 large carrots

3 big potatoes or 6-7 small potatoes

bay leaf
2 onions, thinly sliced

sometimes peas or green beans (1/2 cup) or really whatever veg you have in the fridge
1 garlic clove, chopped
2 green bell peppers, halved, seeded and thickly sliced

2 T tomato paste
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
5 tablespoons brewed coffee
salt and pepper

Directions:

Brown the meat in a pan with oil. Remove the meat with a slotted spatula and keep warm. Add the vegetables to the pan and cook over low heat, stirring occasionally, for a few minutes until brown. Sprinkle in the flour and cook, stirring constantly, for 2-3 minutes, Gradually stir in the coffee stirring constantly. Return the meat to the pan, season with salt and pepper to taste, cover and cook for 1 hour or until the meat is tender. Serve with french bread.