Comfort

Karen Scholl is responsible for introducing me to Tomato Soup from City Cafe on Lover's Lane in Dallas. She took me, and some other first year consultant's wives, to lunch over 10 years ago and while we spoke about what its like to be married to a traveling businessman my taste buds danced and sang hallelujah to the music of Tomato basil.

Being then the wife of a newly graduated MBA, finances were tight. I couldn't afford to go back to the swanky cafe for soup any time I pleased. I mentioned this to my sweetheart, and he took matters into his very own hands.

He learned how to make the soup.

By Christmas of that year he had the recipe down pat. Soup at my beck and call, as long as John was home to make it. And that really was the key. For I know how to read a recipe and the ingredients aren't hard to find. Its the magic of John's hands making the concoction that creates the delicious feeling of comfort the comes through me head to toe when this soup is served.

When we moved to Sweden and I had to get used to a dark and dreary winter, John made soup.

When we moved to Idaho and I had new friends to make, a house to put back together and a new life to figure out, John made soup.

When I returned from my first exposure to the third world, leaving my dear friend Susie behind in that world to fight out the adoption and return with her new children to her house across the street, John made soup.

Another move, to another new neighborhood, soup again.
And again and Again and Again, including when Lucy and I arrived home, after a month in Vietnam and a week of anxious not knowing when we'd see our family again.

Soup-this soup-made by my love is home and comfort for me.

So, the tears (literally) which welled in my eyes last Sunday when John slipped a spoon full of this hot love into my mouth were really no surprise. It was a deeply tender realization that no other recipe (not even my mom's rice with hamburger and cream of mushroom soup gravy) brings more comfort than this

made by my husband
made sweetly and specially for me.
Happiness in a bowl full of comfort, a bowl full of John's made-because-he-loves-me tomato basil soup.

Have a great weekend.
spiritual enlightenment here.