Saturday, October 23, 2010

A True Lover of Soup

This is a very special Sunday Soup post. I come by my love of soup honestly. It's generational. Over the last few years, my grandmother has lived on her own, but not really been up to cooking much. Whenever I visited her, I would make her a big pot of soup and put it in small containers for her freezer because she loved nothing more than a bowl of soup for dinner.

A couple of years ago, my aunt and uncle bought my grandmother a machine that allowed me to email her copies of this blog and then it would print out for her automatically. No computer, no new learning curve, just a weekly update of Sunday Soup. She saved them all in a three ring binder. She loved the blog so much, whenever I knew I'd be going down to Portland, I'd start saving one bowl out of each Sunday Soup and freeze it, then I would take a cooler full of frozen soup for her so she could enjoy all the soups she'd only read about.

Yesterday, Grandma passed away after a short battle with pneumonia. One of the very last things she ate was a bowl of tomato soup. I'm sorry to say it wasn't mine, but I did see her last week, and she was eating soup then too. She was so proud of my book being published, even the nurses knew about it. I always joke that there are two things in my family a person can do to make everyone else proud...be a major league baseball player, or write a book. I think in Grandma's eyes, a good pot of soup also gave you a certain status. It's sad to think I won't be sending her anymore Sunday Soup blog posts, but when my mum asked me if I wanted her collection of SS posts back, my aunt said quickly, "I want that!" so maybe now I'll send the posts to my aunt instead.

Please join me in raising a bowl of soup to one great lady.

Norma Tommerup
1922-2010

4 comments:

Mary Q said...

What a sweet, friendly face your Grandma had! And look at all those books! I know you'll really miss her and sharing your writings and your soup with her. My sympathy, Joelle.

Emmy said...

I'm so very sorry for your loss. Your grandma sounds like a wonderful person and I'm sure that your blog really made her week :)

Sending hugs and prayers to you and your family.

(And tomorrow, I'll have some soup in honor of her).

Unknown said...

My sorrow at your loss and smiles at your wonderful memories for years to come. I come from a soup family also and find comfort in the memories of potato soup and others when money was dear but love and family dearer.

Anonymous said...

I'm sorry for your loss, Joelle. Thank you for sharing your grandma with us. It is a lovely post and a wonderful obituary. I feel as if I knew her.