As long as I can remember, the cure for most ills has been chicken soup. My mom was a decent but not great cook. No matter. When someone in the family had a cold or the flu, she would make us chicken soup. And it was always wonderful.
As an adult I make chicken soup whenever I am trying to offer any kind of comfort for illness, sadness, even death. I’m sure there are vitamins and minerals, and I know that the combination sits easily on the stomach. But really, the point is that I care, that I offer something I made with my hands. That I will give you the best I have, created with the time that is always hard to find. You are loved; you are worth it; I hold you in my heart.
I follow Pantsuit Nation on Facebook. For a naïve, middle-aged-plus woman, it’s a tsunami of reality. Personal story after personal story of how many are descending into hate, ugliness and harm and how they are turning into rage and cruelty monsters. How many innocents are being attacked and reviled.
Today, as I scrolled through, a woman wrote in about how three days previously she had been assaulted by two men at work, that she was numb with shock and didn’t know what to do. That reality took some time to register in my brain, so my fingers kept scrolling. The next post was from a friend saying the day was cold and rainy, so she thought she would curl up with some chicken soup.
Chicken soup. I wanted to send all the spiritual chicken soup to the woman who had been attacked, and I know that the help would be as pitiful as a bowl of soup after the death of a loved one. But it can’t hurt. It can’t hurt to know that in the face of brutality, you are loved and cherished.
And I hope that there will be a bowl of chicken soup waiting for me as I face what the world has become. None of us should go down without a fight; none of us should go hungry for a bowl of caring and righteous determination.
Time to get out the pot and start cooking.