134. Fried Hot Dogs and Buttered Rice

When someone you love dies, it’s easy to treat them like a saint every time you remember them. But today, we celebrate all the weird things our dead people did that made us smile…and cringe.

Transcripts may not appear in their final version and are subject to change.

Nora: Okay. I’m Nora McInerny, and it’s going to be okay. And if you’re new here, it’s important that you know that this podcast is a group project where people write to us, call us, send us voice memos by email. All the details to do that are in the show description and they share their okay things with all of us so we can share these okay things with all of you so we can all start or end our days with the opposite of a doom scroll.

We called this show, It’s Going To Be Okay, because we know that not everything will be okay, but that something out there will be, and we’ll find it together. And today, it’s this. This is an email that we got from a listener. 

Hey, Nora. My husband died from colon cancer when he was 47. I was sad beyond belief and had a 12 year old, 16 year old, and 20 year old who just lost their beloved dad.

I wasn’t sure things were ever going to be okay again. Once someone is gone, it is so easy to remember them as perfectly perfect in every way. But this really robs someone of their true nature. My person was funny and smart. He loved to dance and loved music loud. The other day when my adult children were over for Sunday Fun Day, a monthly date to share a meal and catch up, his name came up, as it often does.

Just the fact that we talk about him without it being awkward is so lovely. I looked around the room at my kids faces and they were all laughing about one of his go to meals. Cooked hot dogs fried up and cut into pieces served alongside buttered peppered rice or his chicken Howard dish, or when he drove away from the school carnival with a coveted cakewalk cake on top of the car and how mad everyone was once they arrived.

Home sand’s cake. When we laugh like that with his name on our lips, I know it’s going to be okay. This August 8th would have been his 60th birthday, and we’re all okay.

It does rob people of their true nature to not be able to talk about them as a full person, not just as a saint, but as a man who committed the serious crime of eating fried hot dogs cooked up and served along buttered peppered rice, which I’m joking because that honestly sounds like my ideal meal and it might be.

What I have for lunch today. I don’t think we talk enough about Hot dogs and what a perfect food they can be whether you cut them up or whether you eat them whole You do have to be careful with hot dogs because if you eat too many of them as my friend Ryan found out in high school you can get an intestinal blockage That’s not what we’re talking about here though.

We are talking about About Gay’s husband who I presume his name was Howard and that chicken Howard was not the name of a chicken named Howard that he cooked, but I love this email because yeah, you are okay You are okay, even if it’s not okay that your kids lost their dad or that you lost your husband the okay thing Is that all of you still have each other and that you can still speak about this person that you love so much and that dead people, after all, are just dead people.

Megan’s grandpa didn’t know how to talk with any grandkids, so the only thing he ever said to 

Okay. I’m Nora McInerny, and it’s going to be okay. And if you’re new here, it’s important that you know that this podcast is a group project where people write to us, call us, send us voice memos by email. All the details to do that are in the show description and they share their okay things with all of us so we can share these okay things with all of you so we can all start or end our days with the opposite of a doom scroll.

We called this show, It’s Going To Be Okay, because we know that not everything will be okay, but that something out there will be, and we’ll find it together. And today, it’s this. This is an email that we got from a listener. Hey, Nora. My husband died from colon cancer when he was 47. I was sad beyond belief and had a 12 year old, 16 year old, and 20 year old who just lost their beloved dad.

I wasn’t sure things were ever going to be okay again. Once someone is gone, it is so easy to remember them as perfectly perfect in every way. But this really robs someone of their true nature. My person was funny and smart. He loved to dance and loved music loud. The other day when my adult children were over for Sunday Fun Day, a monthly date to share a meal and catch up, his name came up, as it often does.

Just the fact that we talk about him without it being awkward is so lovely. I looked around the room at my kids faces and they were all laughing about one of his go to meals. Cooked hot dogs fried up and cut into pieces served alongside buttered peppered rice or his chicken Howard dish, or when he drove away from the school carnival with a coveted cakewalk cake on top of the car and how mad everyone was once they arrived.

Home sand’s cake. When we laugh like that with his name on our lips, I know it’s going to be okay. This August 8th would have been his 60th birthday, and we’re all okay.

It does rob people of their true nature to not be able to talk about them as a full person, not just as a saint, but as a man who committed the serious crime of eating fried hot dogs cooked up and served along buttered peppered rice, which I’m joking because that honestly sounds like my ideal meal and it might be.

What I have for lunch today. I don’t think we talk enough about Hot dogs and what a perfect food they can be whether you cut them up or whether you eat them whole You do have to be careful with hot dogs because if you eat too many of them as my friend Ryan found out in high school you can get an intestinal blockage That’s not what we’re talking about here though.

We are talking about About Gay’s husband who I presume his name was Howard and that chicken Howard was not the name of a chicken named Howard that he cooked, but I love this email because yeah, you are okay You are okay, even if it’s not okay that your kids lost their dad or that you lost your husband the okay thing Is that all of you still have each other and that you can still speak about this person that you love so much and that dead people, after all, are just dead people.

Megan’s grandpa didn’t know how to talk with any grandkids, so the only thing he ever said to her was, How’s it going, cookie? Got any boyfriends? Which is so cute, but, you know. No, your nine year old granddaughter doesn’t have any boyfriends. And also, you know, you know, we’re just people. My first husband, Aaron, thought that Jennifer Aniston wasn’t hot.

That was something we fought about and he was wrong. And I will never let that go. I myself have left. More than one thing on top of the car and driven away and not noticed or noticed a little bit too late. So I really do connect with Howard on that level and it actually kind of brings me comfort to imagine which things about me, the good, the bad, the hot dogs and fried buttered rice, My children will remember and sometimes I know because they tell me they tell me that’s a great story to tell at your funeral And I think okay.

Okay. We are big fans of Talking about your dead people here at feelings and co the good the bad the hot dogs and buttered rice Which again might be my lunch today. I’m Nora McInerny. It’s going to be okay It is. We don’t always know what that it is and we find it together through this show every day we bring you a little bit of okay for your day and it’s different every day, which is fun for us if you have an okay thing to share with us.

You can email us like Gay did and I will read it out loud. You can record a voice memo and email it to us. You could call us. We are a production of Feelings Co., an independent podcast production company that also makes Terrible Thanks for Asking and the Terrible Reading Club and a ton of really great shirts and stickers and prints and more things.

You can find All the things that we do on our website at Feelings Co. Now we gotta get back to the Feelings Factory and make all the feelings. But who makes these feelings? For you, it’s me, it’s Megan Palmer, Claire McInerny, Marcel Malekebu, Jordan Turgeon, and Michelle Plantan. And you. And you. Go have some feelings today, guys.