Mom obtained a paralegal degree while Alison and I were in high school. She went to work for a law firm and Alison and I were tasked with making dinner a couple of times each week.
We always made the same things. She made Mac & Cheese, and I made Tuna-Lemon Loaf. This goes along with our childhood board puzzle/game where I put in the US and South America and she did Europe and Africa. Now I’m afraid we’d both be lost with all the new/re-named countries.
So, I didn’t want to make Mac & Cheese because it took too long. What I did was basically a tuna souffle. Two cans tuna, three eggs, yolks in the mix and whites beaten to stiff peaks. I don’t really remember the rest but can ask my sister after the dust settles.
I don’t remember what I was going to say next as I’ve spent the last 20 minutes on the phone with Margie, Jim’s Mom, She’s a nurse and has been very helpful with information on Mom’s drugs and dying. She’s at the VA with a lot of older vets so has been through this many times.
From time to time, I do make my own Mac and Cheese, with special cheddar. The tuna souffle has gone by the wayside because Jim can’t eat anything that swims. But I often wonder how it would taste.
Thanks for sticking with me and have a great evening. Dee
Cooking with Dee 
I’ve seen death many times but everyone is different and every family is different. When the person you lose is one who means so much, it will ALWAYS be hard. Sometimes the longer time spent ‘expecting’ imminent death makes it easier to breathe a sigh of comfort when the passing occurs. Sometimes it is too hard to let go no matter what. My favorite experience of all occurred with my sister-in law who died of cancer at 51 years. She had lost her ability to speak in her last few days here but was definitely aware of everything and wide awake for hours on end. It seemed she stared at a corner of the room for much of the time. Her increasing weakness and pain were obvious but finally she had trouble breathing, like needing to cough, and then, looking upward at her favorite corner (where we saw nothing but 2 walls meeting the ceiling) she got the biggest smile on her face and then she was gone. Her mother was blessed to be able to see this. We have a strong belief in God and Christ and eternity. That seems to help most people more than anything when death is near.
We were given an interesting book on the afterlife once, RETURN FROM TOMORROW by Dr. George Ritchie. He describes a fascinating journey before his soul, if you will, returned to his body. It made this pragmatist begin to think there certainly was a spirit world and it coexists along with us, not just one wherever eternity is. We just don’t have direct access to any spirit other than God and his Holy Spirit and we don’t often get clear messages from them. I have known of people who are in their last few days or hours in this life and they keep seeing people such as a long dead family member, waiting outside the window. Is it a deranged mind or is it another kind of window, one to the world to come?
On a lighter subject,
we used tuna, growing up, to make tuna patties. Just like salmon patties but cheaper. We used egg to bind the tuna and crumbled saltines in the mix. With salmon I roll them in cornmeal also. Either is pan-fried in a little oil. Funny thing, Jim tolerated eating tuna patties as a boy but not the salmon.
I do remember! Lemon juice, lemon slices lining the loaf pan. One can of Campbell’s Cream of Celery Soup. Perhaps bread crumbs. I can’t make it for Jim but may just try it out one day and see if it tastes like I remember all those years ago. Dee
Dee…tough days for you, I’m sure. After reading Jim’s mom’s post, had to mention something. When my grandmother (Nana) was dying of pancreatic cancer, she was totally lucid until the end. She lived in the flat above her sister, and the night before she died, she called her sister (my Aunt Mary) to her bedside. She told her she had seen their mother (long deceased) sitting at the foot of her bed, and she felt calmed by that. She died peacefully the next morning. I always took some comfort in that and hope it may somehow help you…. Pam