Culinaria L'amore

Culinaria L'amore Prologue*

Prologue

The day of my father's funeral was one filled with heavy, gray clouds and a strong wind that nearly knocked over the makeshift, blue tent all the mourners found refuge in. The sun couldn't be seen and green leaves were blowing everywhere despite the fact that it was the beginning of August, a time in Colorado where everything was supposed to still be intact.

Unlike my life, as dramatic and soap opera-ish as it sounds.

I sat in the first row of chairs, staring mutely ahead as my uncle began his speech. My short, black dress was itching my sides because of the strange lace material and the wind caused my hair to fly into my face, but I didn't move as I twisted my father's eulogy in my hands. The paper was soft and wrinkled when I rythmically smoothed up the sheet on my knee before twisting it up again and repeating the tedious process. I could feel my mother's sobs as she placed her head on my shoulder and could see the tears dripping down my uncle's face as he read from his paper. The only thing I refused to acknowledge was the sturdy, brown, wooden coffin that held my deceased father, covered in an array of red and blue flowers and a picture of him smiling on the Florida beach.

Before, I always thought that I was supposed to have life planned out. After graduating high school, I was supposed to live the rest of my life working as a chef in my father's small but pleasant restaurant, L'amore, and maybe, just maybe, falling in love with the ideal man, or even a mediocre one, and have a kid or two. In some sense, I thought that life would go perfectly on course, not missing a step and avoiding the bumps as I went through life's journey. Never once did I think of mortality and how someone's life could stop so suddenly.

That was easily the definition of naivety, the nice word for stupidity.

My hand crumpled into a fist, wrinkling my speech again, as I thought of how cruel life could be. Just as I started believing my life was on the right path, Adam Ramsey, convicted criminal, just had to hop into a stolen police car and barrel into the taxi containing my father. The death had been instant, the emergency room doctors had muttered as they tried to comfort my mother hours after he passed away. But nothing could soften the blow of a wonderful man's death because my father's fifty-four years of life had been stolen, just like the police car, and nobody could do anything to stop it. Reality.

Empty words of strangers never helped, and looking at my frail mother and imagining my own haggard self, we were the epitome of why it was always good to have a backup plan, in case something else failed.

I shot back into reality as mother's bony elbow gently jabbed into my side, noticing that my uncle had finally finished reading his letter and that most mourners' eyes were focused on me. I stood up shakily, trying to smooth out my crumpled paper without the support of my knee as I headed to the raised podium and cleared my voice, staring down at the microphone beginning to read in a soft tone.

"My father was the kind of man that didn't like to wait for something to happen, whether it was a dream of his to come true or the next shipment of vegetables. Somehow, he found a way to live every second of his life to the very fullest, an incredible feat. His love of food influenced many around him and his joy of life was absolutely contagious to those he knew."

I continued reading as I looked around at the band of people, having reread my own speech enough times that the words just flowed out of my mouth. I saw customers of his restaurant and people who had talked to him incessantly. The mailman that delivered the mail every morning was even there, trying to indiscreetly wipe away the tears that had fallen onto his stuffy grey suit, that showed off his pouched belly, with a napkin.

There were also some people that I didn't recognize. My father had many friends and that was obvious from the amount of people that had crowded into the white tent. My eyes fell on a sophisticated looking Italian woman who was crying freely, while leaning her head on a broad shoulder.