Composting the past

I finally cleaned out the fridge. I braced myself and ruthlessly went through all the contents, separating what was still good and what I was still likely to eat from the things that were past their prime or that weren't to my taste.

I filled a large paper bag of compostables for the city yard waste bin: cookie dough Sandy requested as she was dying, leftovers from meals friends provided me in the weeks after Sandy died, the carrots and cukes and zucchini Sandy pickled a few years ago, the rhubarb liqueur she made as an experiment and never had the courage to try.

I tossed the vegetable juice I opened a few months ago, thinking that would be a great way to get more nutrients; only when I drank a glass did I remember I don't actually care for vegetable juice. I composted vegetables I'd bought optimistically just before contracting a stomach bug that made me less enthusiastic about cooking. The unused half of a can of coconut milk. Deli green beans that I'd started to eat and enjoy before I was made all too aware the next day that they weren't cooked through enough for my ridiculously sensitive gut.

I've always been amused by this photo, taken at a
family party in 2002. I assume we didn't realize
someone was taking a photo of us (using our camera,
clearly, because it was during the time that there was a
smudge on the lens that showed up on every picture -
 you can see it on Sandy's right knee). Licking out the
remainder of whatever had been in this bowl was typical
behavior. Neither of us has ever had much self-control
when it comes to leaving food uneaten.

The wasted food was hard to see, though at least it goes to compost. But it was Sandy's food that was the hardest to toss. I know that even if she returned today she wouldn't eat the stuff that had been in the refrigerator that long. (Okay, so she would try to, but I'd pull them out of her hands.) And, through a combination of practicality and sentimentality, I am still holding on to a small thing of peaches that came from the chemo infusion center; a small can of soda and a small can of juice, both from hospice; and a few other things that may never actually get consumed but are still sealed and still viable.

I also kept a bottle of beer. One of the tenants in a neighboring apartment building used to give us the spent barley from his home brewing operation. It was wonderfully rich for our compost bin. In return, I'd slip him a few tomatoes, some garlic, a zucchini or onions. He was always ecstatic to get the vegetables. We were clear that we had the better end of the deal for about a year and a half. Then one day we ran into him on the sidewalk and he told us he was moving. To Maine. That day. Sandy said she was disappointed that she'd never gotten to try his beer, so he thoughtfully left a bottle on the porch for her before he set off. She never got around to drinking it, and I have no idea how long it's likely to be good, so it remains at the back of the top shelf. If no humans show interest, maybe I'll give it to the slugs. Keep it local and all.

I didn't just clean out the contents of the fridge. I scrubbed the shelves and drawers, a task Sandy and I used to undertake approximately annually, usually on a nice warm day so we could lay things out on towels on the deck to dry when we ran out of space in the kitchen. It was a two-person job: I'd sit low on a small stool at the open door and hand her food to arrange on the counter, and then I'd pull out shelves. She'd wash one while I negotiated the somewhat tricky angle of the next, and while I cleaned the interior of the refrigerator itself. We didn't enjoy the task, but we liked working together, and we always felt so proud of ourselves when we were done.

I didn't quite do the whole thing. I didn't sort through or scrub the door shelves, and the freezer's still a jumble. But I did something much harder: I cleaned and reclaimed her meat drawer. Even when vegetables had overflowed the vegetable bin in recent months, I'd shoved them into tight spots on the fridge shelves. I left the meat drawer empty (having tossed or given away the meat long ago), but it was Sandy's space and I didn't want to take it from her.

When I was done, I did in fact feel proud of myself, especially for thinking ahead to do all of this on the day that I put out the trash and the yard waste for pickup. But I also felt terribly sad and alone. All the food in the fridge is mine now, except for those few small things from hospice and chemo. And one bottle of beer.