The Tastes of Midnight Snacks

Now, the only place you can savor the midnight snacks you and your parents and siblings shared is in your memories, translated…

When we were younger, my mother, for the sakes of making ends meet, she’d delivered the newspapers in the morn, worked as a cafeteria lady at the factory, and so, naturally, the family never had any chances of having those midnight snacks; as my three older sisters started working one by one, gotten married, as the household economical burdens lessened, we’d then started having the opportunities to have the midnight snacks.

on the menu, of tonight’s midnight snack…photo from online…

Back then, my father started playing cards for a hobby, and would from time to time, bring home some snacks, and at others, he’d returned home, mildly intoxicated.  Once, my mother had taken me to where my father was gambling for fun, for me to get him home, after this, as I grew older, I’d, stopped enjoying the late night snacks, I’d just worried if my father will get home all right.

Later on, the company my father worked for started having troubles operating, as a bulldozer driver, he could only take the unpaid leaves, with the reductions of the incomes, my father stopped playing the cards, but, the habits of having midnight snacks, he couldn’t, quit.  But he’d stopped buying the foods from the shops around, instead, he’d, prepared them himself.  When he was younger, he was a worker on a fisher boat that went to far far places, and, every single crew member had his own secret recipes, he’d had several; my father would always joked on how he was the one, who’d taught my mother how to cook, because my mother came from the only town in Taiwan that isn’t facing the oceans, Puli, in Nantou, but, for the sake of her husband’s seafood appetite, she’d slowly learned to cook, and became excellent in it.  But, thinking back, my father DID have almost ALL seafood items for his midnight snacks, the hot fish soups, the spicy seafood fried rice, the broiled squids, or seafood porridge with bamboo shoots, and that managed, to satisfy the late night study sessions that my fourth eldest brother and I shared.

illustration from the papers online…

Then, my fourth eldest brother and I went to school away from home, and when we returned home, we’d found, that our aging father stopped having his midnight snacks.  Once, a hard-to-come-by chance came, my father asked me to make him a bowl of instant noodle (he’d only liked a certain brand), I’d laughed and asked why he didn’t make it himself?  He’d said, he’d always made too much, I’d told him, then I shall help him finish the portions, he’d smiled at me, and promised, to make the noodle soups for me.

The very first year I’d started working, my father was hospitalized due to myocardial infarction.  The doctor expected to put the catheters in him, and that it was an easy procedure, with the success rate of ninety-five percent, and we were all very relaxed, waiting with my father until the day of his operation.  The night before, the whole family went to the food court in the hospital to eat, and my father was fasting, he’d mumbled on how cruel we all were, and we’d laughed and replied, “Wait until you’re fixed, then, we’ll treat you to something grand!”

looks ready now…photo from online still…

And yet, my father never got the chance to have that meal by us, became the five percent that didn’t make it.

Actually, I’d no longer recalled what sort of food I had late that evening at the hospital, but I knew, that the fresh fish soup I’d made, could never measure up to my father’s, and the seafood fried noodle, never as tasty as his, and I will, NEVER have that chance of learning to cook from him anymore.  Turns out, an unprepared death hurt so much.  I’d naviely believed, that if I were, prepared, then, I wouldn’t be as sad?  Nope, my mother died two years after stroke, and, my strong sense of sorrow is comparable to when I’d lost my father.  I’d finally understood, that no matter how prepared we believed ourselves to be, that wound from losing someone we loved dear, will never heal.

Because I knew, that I can’t hold everything forever, after saying goodbye to my beloved parents, I’d started cherishing what I have, my siblings, with whom I’d shared my memories with, cherished my small home, that noisy house of mine, and my measly paycheck, which I can travel with occasionally and eat a good meal.  And because of my ability to take nothing for granted, you would, come to understand, that every moment, is helping us make more heartwarming memories, even if it’s just, making that plate of seafood fried noodle for your children.

So, this, is the lesson you’d learned, from losing your parents, you’d realized, how precious the time shared by you and your family members was, and that you’d needed to, cherish the now more than ever, as you’d lost both your parents already, and, now, all you have, are the memories you’d made with them when you were still younger.