Coping with grief after mum’s death, a daughter writes a book on the lessons she learned from her in the kitchen
- Ranjini Rao’s mother died of cancer in 2016 but it took the pandemic, and another family loss, to help her channel that grief into a book
- She turned to the kitchen, as her mum always did when feeling low, and came to realise that food and stories are at the very core of our lives
When my mum lost a drawn-out battle with cancer in May 2016, I was left to grieve, thousands of miles away, with just a trail of memories. She had been in a rest home in New Zealand, and I in India.
On that day, my sister and I lost so much more: our home, material possessions that defined our childhood, and our family, which had only been held loosely on the fraying thread of mum’s life. We had no access to our parents’ house and no direct contact with our father, who continues to live with our now-estranged brother’s family.
For three years I suppressed my sorrow, putting on a brave face. I listened to motivational talks and read books on how to cope with loss, what to make of death, including Hong Kong cancer survivor Anita Moorjani’s Dying To Be Me. Like so many of us experiencing loss, I felt comforted at times and completely overwhelmed at others, wondering if I would ever feel “normal” again.
Through the crests and troughs, I attempted to live a meaningful life: volunteering at a local hospice, giving my time and resources to groups in need. Still, there was an emptiness that couldn’t be filled. It took another loss in the family – my father-in-law’s passing in February 2020 – and a pandemic that forced us to stay in and recalibrate all aspects of our lives, for me to channel my grief into something purposeful: a book.
I turned to the kitchen, as my mum always did when she was feeling low and needed a restorative fix, and came to realise that food and stories are at the very core of our lives.
