Goodbye, Dish
Today I broke a dish. It was a small Corningware casserole dish, like the leftmost one in this picture.jpg):
I was cleaning a dried spill on my desk, and the dish fell off and shattered on the floor. I knew I should have felt sad when it broke, but mostly I felt numb. I had known that the dish would break sooner or later, but I hoped I would get a few years more out of it.
That dish was my main food dish. It served both as my plate and my bowl.
In one sense the dish is not a huge loss. I have another glass dish I can use for my food. If I am sufficiently motivated then I can probably find a similar one. But this dish held sentimental value to me. It was a gift given to me by my friend Mary Ann. (I do not feel comfortable using the word "friend," but Mary Ann once said it was okay to use that term, and I guess it meets my definition for friendship: A has B as a friend if A enjoys spending time with B.) Mary Ann gave me this dish several years ago. I think she was trying to downsize her stuff, and maybe she had put some dishes out on the curb or something. In any case, she let me have it and I was very grateful.
I had known Mary Ann shortly after moving to KW, but we began meeting regularly in 2006. She knew I was a miserly skinflint and said she wanted help in saving money. That fell apart fairly quickly but we continued to meet about once a month. Then her cancer came back, and then the pandemic happened, and then in 2021 she died. The end was not pleasant. I have a lot of bad feelings about our last few interactions. But I still miss her and I miss our monthly meetings. I think about her regularly, possibly because every time I heated up food I would be using the dish she gifted me. Now that dish is gone.
Mary Ann gave me a couple of other gifts over the years, but I do not use them as regularly. I do not know how I will feel when I use them next.
I wish I had not broken the dish. I was not thinking straight. Despite having slept for nine hours the night before I was still tired. But it is gone now.
I might seek out a replacement from a thrift store and pretend it is the same dish. That will not be a truthful solution but it might help me remember Mary Ann longer.