404. Dead Dad Pickles

The week Jo Piazza’s dad died, she found herself sobbing at the butcher counter. On that day, she found comfort from the butcher and a jar of pickles.

Jo Piazza is an author, podcaster and journalist. Her latest book, The Sicilian Inheritance, is on sale now and it’s SO good!! Jo also hosts the podcast Under The Influence, about social media marketing and how we all interact with it.

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

Jo Piazza:  I’m Jo Piazza and it’s going to be okay.  When my dad died, I was a mess.  I was pregnant for the first time. I had just moved across the country. I just lost my job. And after battling a long illness,  my dad passed away  and I didn’t know where to focus my energy. I didn’t know how to mourn. I was hardly sleeping, I was throwing up.

all of the time.  And I was also arranging everything. My mom was in no state to take care of any of the funeral arrangements and I’m an only child.  So it was all on me.  And the thing I remember the most from that whirlwind weekend of organizing a funeral for my father is that someone forgot to pick up the cold cuts  for the funeral reception. 

I don’t know why we were having cold cuts. I mean, it was the afternoon, right? People want sandwiches. They wanted, we’re Italian, so they wanted lasagna, and they wanted some pasta, and also they wanted, they wanted some hoagies.  So I, I decided to to just take control of the situation. And I drove to our local grocery store to, to pick up the cold cuts, to pick up the sandwich things, and got to talking to the butcher. 

The grocery store butcher. And suddenly, I just, I burst into tears. right there in front of a bunch of meat.  And it was the first time that I had actually cried and it happened because the butcher said, Oh, you must be having a party. Why do you need all, why do you need all these cold cuts? And I finally said the words, Oh, they’re, they’re for my dad’s funeral.

My dad died.  And it was the first time that I said it out loud. It was the first time that I truly sobbed  alone and pregnant. in the meat aisle.  And  the butcher walked out from behind the glass case and,  and he hugged me.  And we were just two strangers hugging in the grocery store.  And he said, wait a second, hold on, I’m, I’m gonna get you something. 

And I had no idea what he was going to get.  But he came back a minute later  with a massive jar of pickles.  He just thought,  I should give this girl whose dad just died.  A big jar of pickles.  And he wasn’t wrong.  I took that jar of pickles. I thanked him.  I was very grateful for the hug. I was very grateful to just, to be seen, to someone who didn’t,  to have, to have someone who didn’t know me at all, just to  be a witness to what was happening. 

But I didn’t take those pickles  to the reception.  I just kept them. And pickles, they last forever.  Those pickles have traveled from fridges from San Francisco  to Philadelphia  to another house in Philadelphia.  They’re just in the back of my fridge.  They’re like my dead dad pickles, but  They’re like my dead dad pickles, and no one eats them.

Everyone knows better than that. They’re probably disgusting, but I just, I don’t think that I’ll ever throw them out, because they’re this reminder  that when  I wasn’t sure  how to mourn,  a stranger saw me  in the meat aisle.