After the death of my brother Guisados ​​from our grief

The son of my brother David, Justin, planned a casual wedding reception with sausages and pizza. David and I joked how shocking this would be for our mother and our aunts, who had got used to traditional sit-down bankettes. I was wondering how David would react: he was a meat-and-potatoes or because he preferred Mexicans to the American meal, Plato Fuerte– Child from Guy. But when Justin and his fiance Kassy organized a tasting dinner last June, David was all in.

The caterer was a triple beam pizza, whose cakes are in the Roman café style-the dough that is so thin and crisp that they can use scissors to cut them what they do. There was a pump, cheese and crushed red pepper with caramelized global pumpkin, honey, cheese and crushed; another with San Marzano tomatoes, vegan cheese and basil; A reef on Hawaiian pizza with ham and jalapeno; and pepperoni for the traditionalists. I was shocked when David explained the San Marzano tomato to his favorite. “This is vegan!” I stuttered.

“If you are wrong, you are wrong!” David laughed, his deep giggle filled the air.

It was our last meal together. David died unexpectedly six days later. The year since then was a time of too many losses. My brother, our uncle, a beloved neighbor. During the profound grief of our family, one in particular has determined the unspoken understanding of our loved ones that someone has to take over the management of the next meal. First I saw their offers as simple kindness. But I was recognized that in a world in which people juggle several obligations and rarely cook for large groups, these meals are difficult to draw parts of the mourning process.

My mother and David shared a small apartment with two bedrooms in Echo Park, and in the days after his death, 20 of us gathered there and often balanced paper signs with food on our rounds. My friend Viet Nguyen told me that they call such meetings in Vietnamese Chia buồn– spaces to share grief. We did that, but the meals were also about triggering joy. My husband made Italian sandwiches with potato salad with the recipe of his grandmother. My brother's girlfriend brought Donut with Dodger-Blue-Streusel-Unser forever. Our neighbor made chilaquiles, a dish that we usually don't prepare at home.

Friends and family brought food every day to my mother's apartment. No websites, food trains or text threads; They have just appeared and coordinated personally. My mother, always the good host, tried to give away food when the guests went. I didn't ask them that every plate would force my older aunts to fill up the buffet.

During the profound grief of our family, one in particular has determined the unspoken understanding of our loved ones that someone has to take over the management of the next meal.

My aunts, all in the 80s, prepare meals with a delicate balance between love, work and business. They stretched out Guisados (steamed meat) or Picados (seasoned meat) with onions, tomatoes and garlic. They made comforting enchiladas with cheese instead of chicken. Rice, beans and Sopita– A simple but nutritious soup made of chicken, tomato broth and pasta – was omnipresent. These foods are not just comfort dishes; They are for care and cultural memory. They bring us back when we were captured, nourished and protected.

In a late Saturday afternoon, a family of the family arrived with fresh, hot churros from a restaurant in Boyle Heights. My aunts, full of lunch, initially refused. But when the friend opened the paper bag and had released the steam of the hot, sugar -containing, perfectly delicate, pillow churros, the temptation was too strong. Then my aunts joked: “These were good … but they were so small!” The Churros have brought us pleasure and reminded us that we not only survive, but to give themselves to, want, want to want and want more.

The author Anne Roiphe wrote: “Grief is in two parts. The first is the loss. The second is the new formation of life.” I decided to take my mother and my aunts – “The Golden Girls”, as we call them, to take Mexican Mother's Day, which was celebrated on May 10, eleven months after David's funeral. It was our first time as a large family without him.

We went to El Compadre, a place my brother loved, especially before or after a Dodgers game. My Tia Evelia went down the back staircase when “Secreto de Amor”, her characteristic song, began to play. She turned it into a great entrance, hovered down the stairs, sang, fluctuated her hips and sat with a swirl when we all smiled and clapped in time.

And so life went on, because that is what life does.

Justin and Kassy married in autumn with my husband Ian, a judge who served the ceremony. The food was as fabulous as the tasting. Sausage fabrics that were overcrowded with hardened meat and ouille sausage, ham, gabool – with butter -like cheese, provolone and mozzarella, crispy bread and humm for vegan quantities.

I realized that this spread was not so different from the Carnitas plates that my family serves in Mexico: Carnitas paired with Chicharrónes, pickled onions and lime. Maybe my mother and my aunts have therefore not complained about the lack of a formal meal and simply enjoyed the food.

We were almost full when they served pizza, but of course we ate that too. David was right: If you are wrong, you are wrong.

There were so many remains of the wedding that I brought the vegan pizza home and froze it. On days when the grief feels unbearable, I pull out a piece of these pizza, heat them in the cast iron pan and feel David's presence with me. I eat the disc and am nourished by the memories.

He still feeds me. He still feeds us.

Natalia MolinaA historian at the University of Southern California is also a writer and finalist of James Beard Award for A place in Nayarit: Like a Mexican restaurant, a community nourished.

Main editor: Sarah Rothbard | Secondary editor: Eryn Brown