Death Potato Casserole
/Rachel Kurasz
Ingredients
3 Tbsp. Butter
1 Small Yellow Onion, Finely Chopped
1 Tsp. Sweet Paprika
3 Cups Whole Milk
2 Cups Diced Cooked Ham
Kosher Salt
Freshly Ground Black Pepper
2 ½ Pounds of Russet Potatoes, Peeled and
Sliced into ¼”-thick rounds
2 Cups Shredded Cheddar
Freshly Chopped Chives
(Recipe from Delish.com)
First, you come home from a long day of working
at your retail job plop your bag on the chair your
mom tells you to stop putting things on, but you
forget and do it anyway. You take off your black
tennis shoes and settle in to relax and watch a
fun television show that years later you can’t
remember the title or premise of because much
more important horrible things are about to occur
in your life that change things forever. Later you
define this exact moment as the last moment
anything made sense in this world, the last time
you felt truly safe and happy, the last time your
family felt together and not broken into a million
pieces, the last time you felt like yourself.
Second, your mom comes in and complains about
the bag on the chair and tells you to move it, you do,
but just by placing it next to you and not actually
taking it to your room where it belongs. Your mom
asks you how your day was and then plops a bag of
potatoes on your lap. “Ok, what’s this?” you ask. “Help
me make dinner?” she asks. You don’t really want to
but because you love your mom and are ok at cooking
you agree to do so.
From here you get a giant bowl in order to catch the
potato skins as you peel them off. You start to peel and
notice these potatoes must have an iron will as they are
just not peeling. You scrape your finger, but no blood
comes out, so you figure you are good and keep peeling.
With each peel you struggle through and start to feel
resentment towards the potatoes that just refuse to peel
easily. Your mom checks on you and laughs a little bit, which
you find irritating so you sass, “How about you peel these
potatoes if you think it’s so easy then mom.” “Eh no, I am
doing all the other steps thank you very much.”
Years later as a PhD student you regret not getting all the
advice you could from him.
At this point your dad walks in. He is wearing blue plaid
pajama pants and one of his button-down shirts with a
couple of buttons not quite in the right hole. He seems
tired, not unusually tired just regular tired. He is a 58-year-old
college professor who has been working on grading papers
or writing a conference paper, or his latest text book revision,
or something all day. At this point you don’t think you’ll ever go
back to college again or be a college professor so you don’t
really pay that much attention to what your dad does. Years
later as a PhD student you regret not getting all the advice you
could from him.
Next, he asks you how your day was, sees that you’re struggling
with something, smiles, sits down in the chair you moved your bag
from and grabs a potato, a peeler, and helps you for a bit. “Helping
mom with dinner?” “Yeah.” “What show is this?” you remember
telling him about the show, the odd sci-fi premise of a time traveling
girl who got a second chance at her life, but how she was blowing it
by being focused on romantic relationships instead of being a better
person. You probably mentioned the title but again, years later that
doesn’t matter as much as your dad sitting next to you in that chair
helping you with a potato.
He says, “I don’t know where you find these odd shows. You
should just stick to Dr. Who. Now that’s a good time-travel show.”
You nod your head and keep struggling. He finishes his potato in
about thirty-seconds. You look at him completely flabbergasted
and he smiles, “Takes practice.” “I’m so done with these potatoes.”
He laughs and goes in the kitchen to check on your mom. He kisses
her on the cheek and says, “my love.” He asks what is for dinner and
truth be told you don’t remember the actually recipe name only that
it had potatoes, ham, and cheese, so to write this essay in the first
place you had to google recipes that had these ingredients, the one
from delish.com sounded the most accurate.
He didn’t know he was going to die. I didn’t know,
my mom who was a nurse didn’t know. No one knew.
He yawns and says, “boy I think I’m going to take a nap. Wake me
when it’s dinner?” “Sure,” you say not realizing this is the last thing
you will ever say to your father, that this is the last thing he will ever
say to you. No big goodbyes, no words of advice, no “I will always love
you.” Just “I think I’m going to take a nap. Wake me when it’s dinner.”
He didn’t know he was going to die. I didn’t know, my mom who was a
nurse didn’t know. No one knew.
Years later your mom only remembers that he called her “my love.” And
was in the kitchen one moment, gone the next. If she knew, she would have
ran and gave him a baby aspirin or something, called 9-1-1 done CPR right
then and there, used all her medical powers and training, but she didn’t know.
You think If only I peeled them faster, If only I didn’t complain
so much, If I just was a little faster.
In truth, you will blame yourself for years and it won’t be until 3 therapists
and 2 years into therapy that you stop. It’s silly but you blame your horrible
peeling skills for your dad’s death. You think If only I peeled them faster, If
only I didn’t complain so much, If I just was a little faster. But your therapist
for the course of months keeps telling you that there is nothing you could
have done and giving energy to these thoughts is bad.
You finally finish peeling the potatoes. You chop them up and hand
them over to your mom. She throws the whole casserole together and
puts it into the oven for a degree amount and time that you don’t
remember, or really care enough to find out for the people wanting to
make this dish. You watch tv and after a while the oven timer goes off
and your mom tells you to go wake your dad.
Your voice trails off as you see your dad looks pale,
really pale, is motionless, and not breathing.
You think nothing of this and go down the hall and knock on your
Dad’s office. “Dad dinner!” no response. “Dad Dinner!” no response.
“Dad! Dinner!” still no response. You open the door while saying, “you
must be really asleep dad cause—” Your voice trails off as you see your
dad looks pale, really pale, is motionless, and not breathing. You scream.
Your mom runs in and instantly starts CPR while telling you to call 9-1-1.
You run to your phone that you left in the other room and shake as you
dial. Your fiancé who was coming over to eat dinner and play Settlers of
Catan with you and your family comes in, sees your face, and knows
something is wrong. You stutter out, “Dad.” He runs to help your mom.
Years later he holds your hand, now your husband, as you struggle to
draft this story. He looks at your giggling baby playing with a toy and says,
“He would have been an awesome Grandpa.” You cry and nod your head
yes.
“9-1-1”
“My Dad is unconscious, my mom is doing CPR please send someone.
Please save my Dad.”
“Ok I’m going to need you to calm down,”
“115WeTParBlvdVillParkIlnois.”
“Ma’am I need you to calm down and say that slower.”
You take a deep breath and try again. They say someone is on their
way. Your mom is still doing CPR. She shouts, “He’s so blue Rachel. I
don’t know...I don’t know... Tom don’t leave me! Don’t leave me Tom!”
You stand and go to a paramedic and say, “please save my Daddy.”
You haven’t called him that since you were maybe eight-years-old.
The Paramedics come and take over. Your mom talks to an officer.
Your fiancé wraps his arms around your shoulder but you just fall into
this ball of crying and hurt. You stand and go to a paramedic and say,
“please save my Daddy.” You haven’t called him that since you were
maybe eight-years-old. He gives you a look that tells you that your dad
was a DOA, but to spare your feelings he says, “We will do everything
we can.”
Your mom, your fiancé, and you get in the Prius and drive as fast as
you can to the hospital where your mom has worked since you
moved to that city in 1998. A song your Dad loves pops into your
head and you turn it on. “When I find myself in times of trouble
Mother Mary comes to me, speaking words of wisdom let it be.”
You all start crying because while no one has said it yet, deep
down you know he was gone the minute you opened the door to
his office.
All you really want to do is hug him and scream, “wake up Dad!”
like how Simba did with his dad in Lion King, a movie you first
watched with him when you were four and he hugged you as you
cried over the loss of Mufasa.
You walk into the Hospital and are greeted by a doctor who has
worked with your mom before and he has a sullen look on his face.
You hear your mom whisper, “no.” He directs you to a room with a
round wooden table and chairs, a single box of tissues that your
mom and you go through in five minutes. The doctor tells you
what you don’t want to hear, “I’m sorry. He was already gone.
They did everything they could.” He lets you cry for a bit and
then takes you back to where your dad’s body is. He has a hospital
gown on with his clothes underneath it. He looks asleep, but blue
and his mouth is slightly open. All you really want to do is hug him
and scream, “wake up Dad!” like how Simba did with his dad in Lion
King, a movie you first watched with him when you were four and he
hugged you as you cried over the loss of Mufasa. Your mom holds you
close and trembles, “I lost my best friend. I don’t know what I’m going
to do.” You have never seen her this vulnerable, your mom always was
the strong independent woman who took crap from no one, in this
moment it was hard to believe they were the same person.
“What are we going to tell Danny?” in all this hubbub you forgot
your brother was away on a band tour in Memphis, Tennessee. He
has no idea what has happened. Someone calls him, you aren’t sure
if it was your mom, your fiancé, or an uncle/aunt. But someone tells him.
He doesn’t talk much about his grief with you or anybody so you have
no idea how this moment impacted his life, but you know that it did.
The rest of the night was a blur. You remember you helped your mom
make initial plans, got a bag of your father’s things, and that you packed
a night bag as your mom, you, and your fiancé decided to go drive
and pick up your brother.
You remember the road trip was the best part of the weeks that came.
We shared stories, listened to Dad’s favorite radio station, played
games, cried, and developed our new post-dad family.
Lastly, you get back to your house after driving twelve or so hours
and the semi-vacation from reality is over. You have a funeral to plan,
cater; an obituary to write and a eulogy that you will deliver as being
the ‘writer’ of the family. All of the stuff you need to plan it is in his office,
but for a few days it feels wrong to go in it. Friends and family stop by
and give food, which is good because no one has the energy or will
power to eat, let alone cook. A few days go by and a smell starts to
develop. This is when you realize no one put the casserole actually in
the fridge or freezer and it has been sitting out as is for days.
The last step of this recipe is to take the casserole dish that you
helped with and throw it into the garbage, take the garbage outside
into the garage, where hopefully no critter will rip it open or eat it.
Approximately two days later the garbage men will come and take
the casserole away to wherever it is that our trash goes, and you will
never make this recipe again.
Rachel Kurasz is a writer from DeKalb, Illinois where she currently teaches and is a PhD student at Northern Illinois University. Rachel earned her MFA in Creative Writing from Roosevelt University under the guidance of Christian Tebordo and Kyle Beachy. Rachel also was an AWP Fall 2017 Writer to Writer Mentee under author Laura Creedle. Rachel is currently writing her first graphic novel. Her twitter handle is @KuraszRachel
