For the past three or so weeks, we have had dinner delivered to the house every night — or almost every night — thanks to the kindness of friends who want to support me following Isaiah's death. It's been a relief, no doubt, to not have to cook. It is hard, while grieving, to force myself to eat.

But it's been a strange experience — quite different from the typical grieving process in which friends and family bring over meals. We're under stay-at-home orders, so the food is all ordered from restaurants that are doing delivery. The time that it arrives then has been dependent on a variety of factors — when it was ordered, how quickly the restaurant responds, how fast it gets in a car to our apartment. The latter was challenging too during the nights Oakland had a curfew because of the police riots. Dinner never showed up a couple of times.

It's made me realize how controlling I am over food. I like to line up the meals for the week. Then I know what I need from the grocery store. I manage how many nights in a row we'll have tacos, for example. (There is an excellent taqueria across the street, and folks have ordered us a lot of tacos. And that's fine! I love tacos. But probably not night after night, you know?)

This has been a lesson in grace and in letting go.