My grandmother died the day after my wedding last summer, and although it was devastating at the time, I think I had the biggest jolt when I went to make spaghetti for my husband about 2 months later.

I only make it every once in a while when we’re feeling like something special for dinner — it’s a recipe from my grandmother, who was 100% Italian and an amazing cook. Even though I know the recipe by heart, I had an unacknowledged ritual of calling her up everysingletime I made spaghetti, just to ask her for the ingredients “to make sure I had it right.” She loved the attention, and it always led to better conversation anyway. I didn’t even realize the call was something I did every time, or that it was even that important until I went to make spaghetti that first time and actually dialed her phone number.

And then my poor husband came home to me crying into a stockpot. Luckily I have a wonderful husband too, because he held me and made me call my mom and ask her for the ingredients… and she cried too. But it was all in a good way, remembering.

So thank you again for sharing something so touching.

Thank you for this post. It home I guess you could say.

The first thing that came to my mind, is the automatic air freshner in the bathroom at our old office. When I was pregnant with my son, that smell brought on morning sickness like nobody’s business. To this day, whenever I smell it, I get that morning sick feeling again (my son is now almost 11). Not the best feeling in the world, but it always makes me smile, because my son is the best son in the world and I wouldn’t trade having been pregnant with him for anything!

Smells. The smell of Polo cologne reminds me of the summer that I was 15 years old and I briefly dated an older boy.