Nea Fane – Un Biet Român Pripășit în America / A Hapless Romanian Stuck in The US

A Quiet Toast to the Son We Will Always Carry

Another Mother’s Day Without Cosmin …

I knew the level of sadness would be off the charts, so I tried to make it a little better, just a little, by buying some of my wife’s favorite beers. I know that drinking isn’t a solution, but sometimes it simply helps.

I checked to see if they had those fancy beers at Total Wine & More (my go-to store for all things alcoholic), and off I went. On my way in, I said to myself, “I will not spend more than ten dollars” (the price of the beer) “…or a hundred.” Just like that, in one thought, the investment was multiplied by ten.

Now, at Total Wine, if you walk in and buy only what you need, you’re the strongest-willed person I’ve ever met. You just can’t do that. A normal shopper browses just to see what’s new. Like any normal person could ever know all that’s in that store…. 

So I went in and started, left to right, aisle by aisle, country by country, region by region, just to see what they import from each place. To my surprise, they now have an Eastern European wine section. To my even greater surprise, proudly displayed: Purcari Winery, both red and white wines. My heart started beating faster, and I grabbed a couple of bottles of each. Price didn’t matter (well, it usually does, but I knew it couldn’t be stratospheric, and the fact that I had a 20% off wine coupon really helped). For the first time, I completely ignored Recaș Winery (though now, as I’m writing this, I think I should’ve picked up a few of those, too).

Oh yes, the beer. They had just run out of Daura Damm (I’m still wondering who the other person is in Phoenix who likes it), but I found some Estrella Damm, so that’ll do.

Mother’s Day hasn’t meant the same since we lost our son. There’s a silence behind everything now, even behind the clink of wine bottles or the search for a favorite beer. But still, we try. We show up for each other in small ways. A familiar taste, a shared memory, a quiet toast. It doesn’t heal anything, but it’s something. And sometimes, on days like this, something is all we can manage, and all we can expect.