I still don't believe it, but my recent ex-landlord, Pete, died last Monday. It was not unexpected
(as his son Mike said of Pete's heart attack last year), but it was too sudden for me. Something in me just can't accept that Pete's not upstairs taking a nap.
It turns out that Pete's health was always worse than I knew, because Pete never complained. The most I ever heard was that his shoulder was giving him a little grief, or he wasn't sleeping too well, or he was short of breath. His health was precarious, but he didn't dwell on it. He took care of himself as well as he could and went on with his life. He wouldn't let anything keep him down.
One thing Pete did complain about was salt, because after the heart attack he wasn't allowed to eat hardly any sodium. Actually it got to the point where his sugar, fat, and water intake was restricted as well, but he complained most about the salt, because there's salt in absolutely everything these days. He was always looking for low-salt ways to prepare his favorite foods.
Pete was a lover of spicy foods: hot sauce, anything Thai, kimchi, you name it. Most hot sauces have a good bit of salt, but after Jeff pointed out Brother Bru-Bru's African Hot Sauce, which doesn't have any added salt, Pete started using that quite a bit. Jeff also made some no-salt-added kimchi, using lime juice instead of salt to help start the fermentation process. The kimchi was for Pete's birthday, but unless he snitched, he didn't get to have any. He died just three days too soon.
When I think of Pete, I see him puttering around the kitchen, cooking up something delicious. (Mary doesn't have the same heat tolerance as Pete, so he'd spice his up on his plate. She often said to him, I don't understand why you ruin it like that.
) I see him with his tools, heading out to build another house with Habitat for Humanity. I see him bidding us goodbye, telling us we're like his kids.
Goodbye, Pete. The world is emptier without you.
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