When I was a teenager I had a tumultuous relationship with my mother. I decided to live with my dad in an apartment, and when he wasn't home she would sometimes swing by. Some days it was to harass me and others it was just to visit. One time when we were on good terms, she stopped by and said she had some soup for me. She handed me a little generic clear packet with cardboard stapled on top. Inside were thin, short noodles, and a yellow seasoning powder. "I know it looks generic" she said, "but sometimes those are the best ones". When she left I stared at the packet. The directions on the back of the cardboard were minimal and the design on the front was modest. My heart began to hurt. I couldn't bear the burden of all that the little packet suddenly represented. The soup needed to be good, otherwise it was too emotionally painful. For one, I imagined the struggle of a tiny, family-owned company trying to market their little product on the shelves with the big name competitors. I am a sucker for handmade things, homely designs, cutely-named businesses. To me they are infallible by default, because I just can't accept that they would be corrupt. Second, because my mom saw the good in something unassuming, and I wanted to confirm her intuition. I cooked the soup the next day, and as I had unfortunately theorized, it was neither bad nor good. It was just bland. Looking back at it now, it was likely because it lacked all the addictive "bad" ingredients found in most commercial brands, like MSG and lots of sodium. I don't remember if I never mentioned it to her, or I lied and said it was good.
Years went by, and my relationship was still rocky with my mother. We
had very wonderful times, and very bad times. Every once in a while I
thought about the little clear soup packet and what she said, and my
heart would ache. "Sometimes those are the best ones". The packet
started to represent a lot of things to me. It was the way that my
mother helped me stop and see the beauty in things that would be
overlooked. It meant not to take things for granted, and to always give
things a try. It meant to be unconventional. To not be afraid of what
other people think. As my mother's mental health declines, these little
memories haunt me in the best way. It's a page of warmth in a heartbreaking
novel that I can always reflect on when the bad days seem overwhelming.
They say that chicken noodle soup will heal you, and the memory of that
little packet does. I will always have that in my heart, no matter what.
The soup was very good, mom. Thank you.
