text: I grew up in the 1970's in Northern Virginia, my Dad commuted into DC every day for work. My Mom, Dad, bro and sis and I lived in a little apartment. Since then I've been all over the US and traveled to more than 40 countries - I would never stoop to say we were poor. We had a home, a car, Christmas happened, some years we got to go to the beach for a few days. For sure there were kids at school who had more toys, better clothes, more exciting vacations and parent's with cooler cars. But we got by and we managed to have fun. My Mom did most (all) of the cooking. When my Dad was cooking it was something weird - breakfast for dinner, or frozen turkey TV dinners, he was a good Dad, loved by many but not known for his meal prep skills. But - the man could bake. He baked bread (basic white loaf bread) and he was famous for his made from scratch lemon meringue pie. My Mom almost did most (all) of the grocery shopping. Once my Mom sent him to the store twice in one day - both times he couldn't remember what he was supposed to get. So, he bought a flour sifter. As one does. He was no dummy - his mind was just always full of things like navigation in space, women as priests in the Catholic Church (he was for it), and all of the books every written by George Eliot. Every now and then, when my Mom went to do the weekly grocery shopping (she also kept the budget and knew when we could spend a little extra) , she would find some kind of treat. And, every now and then one of those treats turned out to be a box of Duncan Hines Blueberry Muffin Mix!!! I remember her taking out of the bag and showing it to my Dad. The next Saturday morning somehow we would all be in kitchen early - making muffins! Well, not all of us I suspect some of the muffin making parties were designed so that she could sleep in on a weekend morning. My sister was the oldest and was certain she knew everything. So she was in charge of reading the directions, opening the package, mixing, turning on the oven and telling everyone else what to do. My Dad told her she had to let my brother and I help. He got the job of opening the can of blueberries. I was just baffled by the whole thing. Especially the can. It was just a can, about the size of a cat food can or a tuna can (both of which made me uncomfortable) and it had no label, no markings, just a can. And inside it was this thick gloopy dark purple stuff - I had seen real blueberries and this made no sense to me. No idea, it probably takes 20 minutes to make those muffins, but it seemed like a major undertaking. Eventually though the time would ding! The kitchen smelled like the most amazing bakery in Paris (pretty sure I had no idea where Paris was at the time - but somehow I just knew that). My Dad would put on the oven gloves and pull the trays and out dump the muffins onto the counter. And we'd grab them burning our fingers, rip off the papers and - this is the best part of this whole story - but huge globs of room-temperature butter on them! That weird purple goop had magically transformed into blueberries and the muffins were perfect - I questioned if my sister might really know everything (turns out she doesn't but I love her!). I haven't thought about those stupid muffins in 40 years. They probably aren't very good. Not sure they even sell them anymore, seems like you can buy muffins anywhere these days and they look bigger and nicer and better than those old 1970's muffins. My Dad passed away a couple years ago, right in the middle of Covid. He had been suffering from Parkinson's for several years and was deteriorating. When the time came, the only comfort we had was that he in a better place an no longer suffering. Covid just made it difficult to hold a real funeral, and a proper send-off. I think that's weighed on all of our minds. I try to keep that in mind, but I miss him and get sad sometimes. This morning, like any random Tuesday. I got in my truck and drove downtown to my office. Like any random Tuesday I stopped at the Starbucks in the lobby of my building to pick up a coffee to get me through the morning of online meetings. It was crowded and the line was long. Someone had ordered a muffin and they could not be located. The Starbucks girl was holding it up and yelling "Blueberry Muffin! Who's got a Blueberry Muffin??" I felt like I was hit by a spaceship traveling at the speed of light and was transported back to that little kitchen in Virginia. And we were making blueberry muffins! It was all there in front of me, the smells, the butter, the cat running towards the sound of the can opener as it opened that magic can. I didn't break down, I didn't cry. But when it was my turn and the girl at the counter asked how I was, I said "Oh just allergies, haha!." It was a hard moment - I'm a 50 year old man, we don't do "feelings". But as I walked to my office, it occurred to me - this is one of the first times I've thought about him since he left us - that wasn't just sad. It was bittersweet. But it was happy. Those few seconds were the highlight of my day. It was fun. It was us. It was how we used to be in what seemed like a much simpler time (though I'm sure it wasn't as simple for my folks as it was for us). You can read stuff about grieving, people can tell you stuff. But all you can do is go through it in your own way. It's taken me a few years, but I think/hope/feel I can forget about the Parkinson's and all of that, forget the hospitals. None of that matters. Fuck Parkinson's. I'm going to eat a lot more blueberry muffins.