okra

"I've known your parents for 26 years," she said as we stood side by side at the island, me chopping up a carrot, her, an onion.

She slid them into the frying pan and added a little olive oil.

"I was working as a waitress at a restaurant, and your father and his friends would come in all of the time. I would get so excited when they'd come because they were so nice to me."

I rinsed the celery under the tap, while she diced the garlic sprinkled with dried dill.

"Then they left for Florida, and we were so sad," she said. "They stayed away for a year, but then they came back. By that time I had quit waitressing, had gone back to school, and was now working at the hospital. That was where we saw your mom again. I called my husband, and we were so excited."

She put the cut up celery and garlic into the pan, along with some peeled zucchini and cut up blanched tomato. She closed the lid and turned to me. I was sitting on a chair across from her.

"They are our family. We don't get back to Africa very often. Your parents..." she said.

My eyes teared up.

"They are SUCH good people," I whispered to her.

She took my hands, tears in her eyes, and we just sat there holding hands for a while.

She smiled at me, her brown eyes crinkling up just a touch around the edges, and slipped the okra into the pan and closed the lid again.