There were two plastic seats at the end of aisle 12, about ten feet from the end of the aisle and positioned against a large table currently with a cookie display on it. I was resting… sitting on one of them and in my mind’s eye I could see the electric cart with my 94-year-old father turning the corner with a vengeance searching a new aisle for treasures or treats to buy.
Food shopping had been his weekly pleasure when I would take him to the Burlington Market Basket grocery store, his only venture outside of the small house where he spent his days
“Hey Dad!” I said in my own mind, and I could almost see as my father looked up, smiled and waved to me, then put his head down as he resolutely resumed his mission.
He’d been dead now for over 11 months, yet it seemed like just yesterday when we had cruised these aisles together with me usually in tow, pushing my own shopping cart and ready to reach for something on a shelf above my father’s head, something he wanted, but something out of his reach.
“Hold on Dad… let me get that for you.”
“Thanks Don… no put it back… too much salt…”
And off he’d go, turning the throttle grip on the handle on the super market cart whose large basket in front was filling with food and merchandise… canned vegetables, yogurt… the jelly donuts on occasion, if they were on sale, a quart of Brigham’s ice cream to be softened in the microwave and drunk, all manner of food, both for nutrition as well as comfort.
“I need paper towels… can you put them in your cart… there’s no room here?”
We’d usually go our separate ways at the outset, with my dad driving the electric cart like the lead aircraft in a fighter squadron while I did my own family shopping, frequently checking back on my father as we made our rounds separately but together
We always met up though at the frozen food aisle, one of the last aisles in the store where I’d take a succession of frozen meals out of the freezer case for perusal by my dad, most of which were rejected because of their high sodium content.
The jelly donuts we’d often share, after the car had been packed and the electric cart returned to the store, were our reward, the capstone on another fruitful shopping trip. And, as I prepared to get up from one of the plastic seats at the end of Aisle 12, I could almost taste the sweetness of those donuts and savor the memory of my father.
January 10, 2015
Paul Snyder is an attorney and a 1966 graduate of Notre Dame. Married, he is the father of three and the grandfather of seven children.